RFS for a school

[rikosintie]

I need to deploy wireless for a private school. They have 20 classrooms with a max of 25 students per classroom. They are going to require iPad 2 devices for each student and use Google docs for storage.

The classrooms are in two separate buildings but in each building that are attached to each other.

Any suggestions on what Motorola switch and AP's to consider?
Michael

[AVAGO]

See if you can pickup a ws2000 its only small I think it only supports 6 AP's
If you search for motorola ws2000
this would give you centralized management, will be cheaper than the WS5100 or the RFS6000

or you could look at the motorola AP5131 deployed where you want them.
search for motorola AP5131
Hope this help

[Michael McNamara]

The WS2000 is EoL and as such I wouldn't recommend it. The replacement for the WS2000 is the RFS4000 which supports 6 APs (802.11n capable).

You probably need to-do a site survey to really understand the RF behaviors at the physical location. I've found (in volunteer work I've done) that school buildings are usually built with some very thick concrete (steel reinforced) walls which really limits the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz RF signal. I haven't yet had the opportunity to test an 802.11n design in a similar environment.

I would probably recommend an RFS6000 with x number of AP650s (thin access port supporting dual radios with 802.11a/b/g/n configurations). You'll need a decent wired network to interconnect the APs and the RFS6000 with PoE capability if you wish to power the Access Port.

The issue with iPads, iPods or iPhones is that they all max out their transmission power at 10mW. A laptop by comparison will usually put out between ~ 50 - 100mW. If you can't do a survey I would probably start with the worst case scenario which has you putting a single AP in every classroom. If costs are a concern you could look at utilizing the AP6511 which is a single radio Access Port and can easily connect to an existing wall jack.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnnuQXm1_DM

Good Luck!

[rikosintie]

All;
Thanks for the replies!

I definitely plan on having a site survey done before buying anything. Glad to hear about school construction. We are in CA so maybe even better because of earthquake standards. My big concern is interference so if the walls are concrete with rebar that won't be such a problem.

I just did a 4 site deployment with RFS4000\AP650 with a hotspot so I was leaning that way already. I will start looking at the RFS6000. It is a private school that depends on fund raisers for a big part of their budget but the manager told me cost isn't the driver, a 100% successful deployment is!

Thanks and I will keep posting as I move through the project.
Michael