Saint Mary’s College of California

Key Stats

• 1 network engineer supporting 3,600 students
• 25 Meraki access points deployed in early evaluation
• 90% reduction in complaints regarding slow Wi-Fi

Overview

Nestled in the rolling hills of northern California, Saint Mary’s College of California offers students a diverse curriculum, from the humanities and sciences to education and business administration. The private Catholic college invites students, faculty, and staff from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds to come together and share their faith and quest for knowledge.

While the campus is set in stunning surroundings, connectivity can be a challenge. Even electricity is at risk if power lines in the canyon fail. And over 3,000 students expect super-fast broadband on multiple devices, both at school and in their halls of residence. The college also hosts events at its conference center and outreach programs in the community, which creates an additional pressure to provide fast, secure Wi-Fi on demand.

Challenge

Saint Mary’s College needs highly available Wi-Fi around the clock. It’s currently upgrading its network from Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6, and the team responsible for maintaining it is self-confessed “team of one,” Jim M., Network Systems Manager.

The college runs a corporate network for staff and faculty and provides housing for students living on campus. It also needs to balance giving users a secure browsing experience with the academic freedom to access a wide range of content.

As if that wasn’t complicated enough, many of the school’s buildings are mixed use, with academic floors in the basement and dorm rooms or classrooms upstairs—all with different network requirements. Following the pandemic, classrooms need networks that support both connected devices and live streaming for remote viewers.

Concrete walls containing wire mesh can also disrupt Wi-Fi signals. While the college tried to get around this by deploying more access points, hitting the sweet spot is a delicate balance. Too many access points can even make the situation worse and cause issues with interference.

“It’s not easy to provide great Wi-Fi in buildings that are nearly 100 years old, especially when students are expecting Wi-Fi 6,” Jim commented.

Solution

When the college deployed Cisco Meraki access points to its halls of residence, service desk calls relating to Wi-Fi and Ethernet dropped dramatically. Naturally, when Meraki proposed an early evaluation of next-generation access points for high-density areas, Jim jumped at the chance to roll out future-proof technology that supports Wi-Fi 6 E.

The solution also guarantees no interference with 6 GHz channels, which provides a cleaner air space and mitigates issues caused by the wire mesh in the walls.

New access points have been deployed in the library, gym, and convention center, giving visitors and members of the college community significantly higher bandwidth and greater stability. The plug-and-play setup makes the access points incredibly fast and easy to deploy.

Walled garden environments, which control access to network-based content and services during public events, can be set up in just a few clicks to protect sensitive data while ensuring guests still enjoy fast Wi-Fi.

For an IT infrastructure team of one, cloud-based management has been a game-changer. Regular alerts provide up-to-date notifications of any outages or issues for a quick response.

Ease of use also means the college can enlist extra help to install units with minimal training—something Jim feels is synonymous with all Meraki products. As for maintenance, the Meraki dashboard allows updates and fixes to be scheduled to coincide with student vacations to cause the least disruption.

Saint Mary’s College is also using Meraki Air Marshal to increase security. It allows the team to protect the airspace from wireless attacks and resolve threats before they risk impacting the network.

The Meraki dashboard makes managing the network so simple, I can quickly respond to issues even while I am off campus.

Jim M.

Network Systems Manager, Saint Mary’s College of California

Results

Since deploying Meraki access points, Saint Mary’s College has the stable network it needs to support research and learning and accelerate community outreach.

Not only did Jim rate it “a very pleasant deployment experience,” but complaints regarding slow internet have greatly been reduced.

Resource-intensive applications for video conferencing and live streaming are also running smoothly, even during peak times. And in this case, no news from users is good news―achieving the golden standard of technology “that just works.”

The cloud-based dashboard makes it a breeze to manage and maintain the network, which means the college doesn’t need a separate support contract―although Meraki support is always available when needed.

Going forward, the college is rolling out more Meraki access points to high-density spaces. An additional 200 Meraki switches, which are optimized for hospitality, are to be deployed in its halls of residence. Students are also looking forward to better connectivity in the library, especially during the busy finals period.

Further into the deployment, the tri-band channels 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz will allow students with higher-end devices to connect to 6 GHz, reducing traffic across the other two channels. Lower latency means all devices and resource-intensive applications will perform better, creating a more positive overall user experience.

Since deploying Meraki access points, our complaints regarding slow Wi-Fi have been greatly reduced.

Jim M.

Network Systems Manager, Saint Mary’s College of California