Willenhall E-ACT Academy upgrade to Ruckus Wireless

The Willenhall E-ACT Academy has over 1540 Students on roll. With growing demand for reliable WiFi, the Academy have decided to upgrade to Ruckus Wireless Technology.

The Problem

The Willenhall E-ACT Academy is a mixed Academy educating over 1540 pupils, employing 250 staff and catering for 1000 community users. With today’s growing demands for WiFi in schools, the Academy faced a challenge to maintain its popularity and reputation as a leader in education. It previously had in place 48 unmanaged D-Link Access Points on a flat network, which didn’t provide blanket coverage and “were not up to scratch” according to Steve Coulson, the Willenhall E-ACT Academy IT Technician.

With that in mind, Willenham E-ACT Academy turned to Ruckus Wireless & Purdicom’s partner with the task of providing strong, stable and secure wireless coverage able to support 20+ laptops in a small area at once. The Academy also recently announced plans to roll out tablet devices to over 250 year 7 students within the next year and what’s more, the academy needed a company which had great and responsive technical support.

Willenhall chose Purdicom’s partner after it previously set up its VLAN network, Steve Coulson added, “we were impressed how Purdicom’s Partner got everything working so well and had no problems showing us to change settings and create VLANS – normally other companies we use don’t want to show us anything, they just set up and go.”

Our old wireless was not up to scratch. The new Ruckus Wireless solution has been working great! It is so much faster than our old system

Steve Coulson, IT Technician, Willenhall E-ACT Academy

The Solution

With many years of experience in networking and the top-level Ruckus Wireless Accreditation, Purdicom’s partner specified an equipment list consisting of over 50 of the new ZoneFlex 7372 access points with Ruckus’ new BeamFlex+ technology. A feature-rich ZoneFlex controller was also installed to simply manage & co-ordinate the large quantity of APs and support the multiple VLANs. Coupled with Purdicom‘s partners unmatched installation and technical support, the solution provided was second to none.

The Outcome

Since the successful installation by Purdicom’s partner, oer 1,000 users have been benefitting from Ruckus Wireless’ lightening speeds and killer coverage. Steve Coulson, Willenhall E-ACT Academy said the Ruckus Wireless equipment “has been working great! It is so much faster that our old system”.

Purdicom’s partner also solidified its reputation for going the extra-mile and providing a level of technical support which is rarely found within the IT industry. Steve Coulson added “We had a small internet service provider issue. Purdicom’s partner worked closely with us to get the issue resolved and we are extremely happy with the service.”

The Willenhall E-ACT Academy has future-proofed its wireless network by using Ruckus meaning staff, visitors and the demanding students now enjoy a reliable, campus-wide WiFi network. Purdicom’s partner was NCS Technology which supplied and installed the solution.