RATIFICATION OF THE 802.11n WIRELESS STANDARD

With the ratification by the IEEE Standards Association of the 802.11n standard comes a ten fold increase in wireless data rates designed to help enterprise, home and public WLAN users.  The 802.11 international standard defines how to design WLAN equipment with a variety of capabilities and backward compatibility with legacy standards.

The process of ratification by the IEEE, a globally recognised non-profit body that sets the best practice levels for the technology industry, has involved more than 400 individuals from equipment and silicon providers, service providers and academic institutions from more than 20 countries over a period of some seven years.

There are currently two main standards of wireless network, 802.11g and 802.11n (standards 802.11a and 802.11b exist but are either legacy or not common in an education environment, though supported by wireless devices).  802.11n will now set the standard for the future of next generation multimedia applications and already there are more than one million units shipping every day.

802.11g networks is well established technology offering a maximum of 54Mbps throughput (though typically 20-25Mbps in a real world environment). This bandwidth is shared between all users on the wireless network. 99.9% of all laptops coming to market today will support the 802.11g standard.  802.11n networks, now the new standard for the future, offers bandwidth of up to 600Mbps (typically 540Mbps Maximum). Most new laptops and netbooks coming to market today are supplied with an ‘n’ based radio, allowing them to take advantage of this new technology.

Meru Wireless Networks - Setting the Standard of Wireless Solutions for Education

Meru Networks is at the forefront of wireless technology and provide solutions for both 802.11g and 802.11n networks.

Meru offers exciting new features such as Air Traffic Control which means that all wireless clients have time to send their message on the network and unparalleled network efficiency. This means 99% of data gets sent or received the first time as opposed to traditional wireless networks where this figure can drop to as low as 2% when multiple clients are in use. This means a fast, reliable and robust wireless network which performs that way that enterprise, educational establishments and home users now expect.

“An investment in a solution such as a wireless network is no small undertaking and therefore longevity of any solution needs to be considered. With technology moving quickly and the lifespan of 802.11g networks decreasing, investing in a technology which will be the standard for the foreseeable future cannot represent anything other than best value” says Steve Jones Managing Director of SchoolCare.

Budget constraints mean that not everyone can afford to replace their entire wired infrastructure immediately to allow for a full 802.11n wireless deployment. Meru have, therefore, introduced an intermediate solution which allows customers to lay the foundations for their 802.11n network but allowing them to upgrade their wired infrastructure when budgets allow.

Consequently, SchoolCare have found this 802.11n capable solution extremely popular amongst its education customers.

802.11n has been designed to happily support new and old laptops on the 802.11g standard meaning that schools upgrading their wireless LAN do not lose the use of existing devices.
When a school or college considers upgrading their wireless network to a fully compliant 802.11n standard, the following needs to be considered:

All switches need to support the Gigabit Ethernet standard. This may mean replacing them with newer models, eg the HP ProCurve 1800-24g Web managed Gigabit switch as a minimum.

Meru Wireless Networks offer both single and dual radio versions of their access points. Single radio access points provide superb performance and value and are ideal in situations where a laptop fleet all predominantly have similar Wireless Cards (or cards which support similar 802.11 standards).

Although 802.11n Access Points handle a mixed environment (where clients with both 802.11g and 802.11n radios connect to the same Access Point) extremely well to benefit from uninterrupted high speed throughput a Dual Radio access point is recommended. This allows 802.11g clients to connect to one radio and 802.11n radios to the other. Dual Radio access points are also required to obtain the full 540Mbps per second through put (Single Radio AP’s will offer a maximum of 300 Mbps).

SchoolCare has a long standing relationship with Meru networks and was one of the first suppliers to install and commission educational Meru wireless networks in the South of the UK. The relationship between SchoolCare and Meru spans over 3 years and encompasses a large number of installations both large and small.

SchoolCare and Meru networks have completed a large number of installations for flagship schools in Hampshire and Dorset as well as a great many in Somerset, Wiltshire and Devon.

SchoolCare are currently a Meru Authorised Partner with trained partner engineers, meaning you can be sure of First Class service. All of our engineers are CRB checked and registered and our Electrical and Data engineers are NIC/EIC and/or NAPPIT accredited.

For more information on the Exciting Meru wireless solutions then see our wireless for education page or Meru's website.