Trapeze System Replaces Older Wi-Fi from Various Vendors
By Matt Hamblen
March 7, 2008 (Computerworld) Wi-Fi has become commonplace on
college campuses, but the University of Minnesota is embarking on a five-year
project to upgrade its Wi-Fi network to the much faster 802.11n standard. The
$15 million upgrade would provide about 9,500 access points, one of the largest
deployments to date.
The first phase of the project, to begin in May, involves
replacing 2,200 access points that have been in place for as long as nine
years. The access points from Cisco Systems Inc., D-Link Corp. and others will
be replaced with 802.11n APs from Trapeze Networks at a cost of about $3
million, said Louis Hammond, assistant director of networking and telecom at
the university, in an interview today.
Trapeze beat
23 other bids in a rigorous RFP process, and won because of cost and Trapeze's
ability to manage the overall Wi-Fi infrastructure centrally and in a secure
manner, Hammond said. A key factor was that Trapeze has a planning tool called
Ringmaster that allows the university to use computer-aided design drawings of
buildings to immediately begin planning where to locate the APs for maximum
coverage in 300 buildings with 1,300 floors, and serving 80,000 students,
faculty and staff.
"We're
trying to build a safer and more secure system, and the current Wi-Fi system is
open, so this one from Trapeze will lock it down," Hammond said.
Even though
802.11n is still in draft form, many vendors are selling products to the
existing draft specification. Hammond said the university was concerned about
deploying a draft N product, but decided to go with it because the hardware in
the standard is finalized and only the software might be changed. "If
there are changes, they will be in software," which would reduce the cost
and complexity of a change, Hammond said.
The
university has two campuses, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, covering 1,204 acres.
Faster 802.11n, with its longer range, could be useful in eventually supporting
real-time video and voice traffic, but will also help as the school prepares to
scan bar codes on tickets to football games in a new stadium opening in the
fall of 2009.
Hammond said
the more robust Wi-Fi system could be integrated in the future with WiMax
network applications, although he said it is unclear what those applications
might be. Trapeze said it could integrate with WiMax technology when it becomes
available, meeting one of the conditions of the RFP, Hammond said. "There
are still a lot of questions about WiMax," he said.
