RUSH-HENRIETTA SCHOOL DISTRICT CHOOSES MERU NETWORKS FOR K-12 DISTRICT-WIDE WIRELESS NETWORK

Deploys Meru WLAN System to Boost Learning Environment for 6,000 Students

Sunnyvale, CA — September 18, 2006
 
Meru Networks, the global innovation leader in wireless infrastructure for the All-Wireless Enterprise, today announced that the Rush-Henrietta Central School District, a K-12 school district located in Henrietta, New York, is using the Meru Wireless LAN System to deploy a district-wide, wireless network that, at completion, will deliver a broad range of applications to nine schools with approximately 450 classrooms and four administrative buildings, housing 6,000 students, 650 faculty and 550 staff. In addition to basic services such as file sharing, email and Internet access, the district is utilizing the wireless LAN for a number of sophisticated, bandwidth-intensive applications such as distance learning/videoconferencing and video-streaming content to support and enhance its learning curriculum.

The Rush-Henrietta wireless initiative is part of a larger vision that the school district adopted to make instructional technology equipment, related on-demand support and a yearly funding mechanism for the program, a district priority for improving student achievement and learning. As part of this vision, the district gave every teacher a laptop so they could become comfortable using and integrating technology into their daily teaching curriculum. The district had already installed laptops and desktops in each elementary classroom and mobile labs in their secondary buildings but found that the combination of all these devices was causing significant co-channel interference and performance issues for its seven-year-old wireless network.

While reviewing equipment from both Cisco and Nortel, Rush-Henrietta turned to partner, MicroTech Information Systems of Rochester, New York, to evaluate Meru Networks as a solution for its rapidly growing network. After testing these different systems in Rush-Henrietta's network and with their applications, they concluded that Meru's WLAN System was the only solution that could solve the co-channel interference and performance issues the school was experiencing, as well as support its fast-growing user base and its need to continually add new and sophisticated applications to the network.

"For such a sophisticated Wireless LAN system, the Meru solution was easy to learn and set up," said Dan Pusateri, one of the District's Senior Network Technicians leading the upgrade project. "Both MicroTech's and Meru's technical support team helped us overcome the unique challenges inherent in the K-12 environment. The benefits we've been able to deliver to our students, teachers and staff were highly dependent upon having a system that was easy to deploy with limited resources, and this was the case with the Meru WLAN System."

"The wireless LAN is critical to our district's goal of using technology to increase staff productivity, to increase the teaching tools available to faculty, and above all, to improve the overall learning environment for our students," said Thomson Thomas, Director of Rush-Henrietta's Computer Services Department. "Meru's WLAN System made our vision a reality by addressing all our needs for pervasive coverage, easy expansion, management of the network, and support for all our applications."

About Meru Networks
Meru Networks is the global leader in wireless infrastructure solutions that enable the All-Wireless Enterprise. Its industry leading innovations deliver pervasive, wireless service fidelity for business-critical applications to major Fortune 500 enterprises, universities, healthcare organizations and local, state and federal government agencies. Meru's award-winning Air Traffic Control technology brings the benefits of the cellular world to the wireless LAN environment, and its WLAN System is the only solution on the market that delivers predictable bandwidth and over-the-air Quality of Service with the reliability, scalability, and security necessary to deliver converged voice and data services over a single WLAN infrastructure. Founded in 2002, Meru is based in Sunnyvale, California. For more information on Meru Networks and its products, visit www.merunetworks.com or call (408) 215-5300.