As a boys’ boarding school, Eton College is home to 1,300 students who join at age 13 and continue until age 18. With teaching staff also living on campus, school operations never stop. Eton has four hundred buildings and all major technology systems, school-provided desktop computers, laptops, and audio-visual equipment are connected via the core network that also powers Eton’s wireless infrastructure.
In the past three years, boys have increasingly arrived at Eton with multiple devices— usually a minimum of laptop, tablet, and smartphone—and they expect a robust wireless network. Delivering high-quality Wi-Fi across many different environments on campus is challenging. Students and teaching staff need reliable connections in both classrooms and boarding houses.
With a cloud-based Virtual Learning Environment, use of video and wireless in classrooms, online access to college systems and an IP phone system, Eton College required a high-performance wireless infrastructure.
The wireless network originally started with 100 access points, but every boy has his own room so the number of rooms, walls and doors makes it difficult to deliver uniformly good coverage and high capacity.
Eton also has rigorous privacy, security, and online safety policies. Its robust physical security network includes networked video surveillance cameras, and it recently enhanced already-strong online safety measures in line with recent government requirements to protect children from harm online—including cyber bullying, pornography, and the risk of radicalisation.
As Intec Education expanded the wireless network from 100 to 700 access points, growing volumes of high-speed wireless traffic taxed the existing wired infrastructure so the company implemented Ruckus ICX® Switches to relieve bottlenecks and ensure high-speed connectivity for wireless traffic across campus. Deploying Ruckus Cloudpath software for online security and policy management enhanced online security and iboss Cybersecurity ensured uniform protection across network and cloud deployments.
Eton College now has a strong, reliable Wi-Fi network, meaning that boys can quickly connect to Office 365 and work. Faculty and staff can work without being slowed by their network, supporting Eton’s mission to provide a broad-based education that enables all boys to discover their strengths and make the most of their talents within Eton and beyond.
