Every day, many schools, universities, and educational institutions contact us with questions about browsing issues, outages, and poor quality of the WiFi service for schools. This is nothing new; in recent years, the education sector has been calling for improvements to its networks due to the introduction of new technological factors.
The presence of computers, tablets, computer systems, and even mobile phones in these facilities requires good WiFi infrastructure, technical support, and pre-installation design. But what are the most frequent problems What about WiFi for schools?
Overuse of social media.
Schools and universities are very crowded spaces with high WiFi demand. Hundreds of people require good WiFi setup to meet the needs of educational environments. When all students, teachers, and staff connect to the school’s Wi-Fi network, it can cause a overload.
This happens if a thorough assessment of coverage, hotspots, student mobility, high-traffic areas, etc., was not conducted beforehand.
If the school cannot support all the connected devices as learning tools, it will cause a serious problem. Many schools lack the infrastructure to wireless network designed to connect a high number of users. Therefore, there is a constant stream of devices requiring high bandwidth.
One of the main problems we encounter is a lack of information from the installer. This can lead to an unprofessional solution or one that is not suitable for the specific situation, since Wi-Fi antennas, depending on the model, are designed for different types of scenarios.
How can we fix it?
One solution to prevent the school WiFi network from becoming overloaded is the integration of new 802.11ac standard, is a set of improvements to the physical layer that delivers five times the performance in the 5 GHz band. In other words, it will provide greater reliability and increased robustness.
We will therefore have a high-quality wireless network capable of handling high traffic volumes and ready to quickly handle any unexpected overload.
It is important to conduct a prior coverage study, indicating the "hot zones" for connection (libraries, classrooms, computer labs). Another aspect to consider is that the installing company has a network usage commitment contract, meaning it guarantees a certain number of simultaneously connected users.
Network Security.
Security is the biggest challenge and one of the main areas where many schools have failed to invest. As a result, many parents have demanded that schools do away with Wi-Fi networks. This is a mistake; eliminating a essential service In the midst of the technological era, it is not the solution to eradicate the problem of Wi-Fi network security.
People used to be allowed to connect to the network with their personal device without putting a limit on what they did online, due to the high integration cost and the advanced technical knowledge it required.
Students are curious, if access to the management servers are allowed, they will have no trouble entering them.
It is important to have a network management system that controls certain types of access and restricts browsing to specific websites and content.
So, what's the solution?
The network must be smart enough to know who is on it. Teachers and students need directory accounts so that the system knows who is doing what. The system has to be built on what we call “Role-Based Access Control”This allows us to know who, what, when, and how people connect to the network and restrict access based on the profile or role you have configured.
Next-generation security provides.
Technical Support Overloaded.
With different types of equipment, various configurations, and different software versions, there is a wide variety of technological obstacles. How will you manage all those devices to ensure they are online, configured, and integrated into the network? No school has enough staff to manage hundreds of mobile devices simultaneously. Consequently, teachers are starting to waste class time on the technical support and solve problems.
To solve it...
First of all, IT doesn't have the capacity to resolve all these issues in real time, nor the time to program the adjustments on all devices. There needs to be a process for automated device registration.
Users must be able to log in with their credentials Active Directory and register, which can be done using a mobile device management solution.
When it comes to technical support and troubleshooting, every little issue with all these devices, it's simply impossible for any of the school's IT staff to manage.
Our advice is to put a section in the BYOD Policy (a business system in which employees bring their own devices to work to access resources such as emails, databases, and files on servers) must be fully implemented before integration. Students, faculty, and others must agree to this, as these are their devices. They must ensure that all users are aware of this policy.
BYOD is a a fantastic solution for school Wi-Fi networks, schools, and universities. Of course, there are plenty of other potential issues that can be prevented with proper planning. There’s a lot to consider when implementing a BYOD solution, so if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us and consult us.
We have worked with schools, reducing their problems and improving the content browsing experience by providing them with a cutting-edge WiFi installation in the school, a benchmark for other educational institutions. One of the clearest examples of a successful case in installing WiFi networks for schools is in the Christ the King School of Madrid. There, we conducted a needs assessment and installed three separate networks.