Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has selected Meru Networks' virtual cell wireless technology to upgrade its campus-wide wireless network to 802.11n. Approximately 90 of the university's 500 wireless access points have been upgraded to 802.11n so far in several buildings, including the newly built Center for Biblical and Theological Studies, which houses multimedia and computer labs, lecture halls, classrooms, and offices. The remaining 30 buildings on Cedarville's 400-acre campus will be upgraded over the next several years. The Cedarville deployment has also upgraded to Meru's MC5000 controller, which supports up to 1,000 APs and delivers contention management for high-density wireless environments. The 3,000-student school originally deployed a Meru wireless network in 2006, first in academic buildings and later in student residences.
For its 802.11n network the university uses Meru's AP320 access points, which provide backward compatibility with 802.11a/b/g networks. 'About 30 percent of students' client devices now operate in the 5-GHz range,' Hay said. 'The rest are still in the 2.4-GHz range, and we didn't want to abandon them prematurely. With the AP320, we can serve everyone by dedicating one radio to 802.11a/n at 5 GHz, and the other to 802.11b/g/n at 2.4 GHz.'
