UNIVERSITIES AND K-12 SCHOOLS MOVE TO THE
ALL-WIRELESS CAMPUS WITH MERU NETWORKS
Innovator in Wireless Infrastructure Leads National Trend with
70+ Education Deployments in Past 12 Months
Sunnyvale, CA — September 18, 2006
Meru Networks, the global innovation leader in wireless
infrastructure for the All-Wireless Enterprise, today announced
that with more than 70 educational institutions deploying its
Wireless LAN System pervasively throughout their campuses, the
company is leading the emerging trend towards the All-Wireless
Campus. Meru has delivered its WLAN solutions to 42 universities
and colleges and 28 K-12 school districts, which are using their
Wireless LAN as the primary connectivity mode for Internet
access, educational applications, and instructional management
tools for students, administrators and faculty.
With landmark deployments like the School of the Future, a
partnership between the School District of Philadelphia, the
nation's 7th largest school district, and Microsoft (announced
in a separate release last week), Northern Michigan University (NMU),
the wireless network with the world's highest WLAN user density
at 100+ active users per Access Point, and the University of
Texas at Dallas' campus-wide, converged mobile VoIP and data
wireless LAN, Meru has become the platform of choice for the
Education sector's next-generation wireless networks.
Educational institutions are looking to reengineer education
using technology to address teacher/student ratio, changing
curriculum and administrative processes. Meru's wireless network
infrastructure plays a critical role in this initiative, as it
uniquely delivers the seamless mobility and fast, easy access to
multimedia learning applications, online curriculum and
instructional content, necessary for an "anytime, anywhere"
learning environment.
At universities, wireless is increasingly the primary means of
communication for students, administrators and faculty and is
quickly becoming the most productive, efficient and
cost-effective means of accessing critical applications daily.
K-12 school districts are now following suit and adopting
innovative, next-generation wireless-enabled IT infrastructure
strategies. Funded largely through government subsidies and
private grants, an increasing number of K-12 schools are
integrating wireless and mobile technologies to better meet
instructional demands and provide their users with greater
convenience and more resources. Wireless also has the added
benefit of eliminating many of the costs associated with
traditional wired networks throughout the schools.
"Although other WLAN vendors have touted deployments in the
education sector, this is the first time we've seen such a
significant number of K-12 districts, universities and colleges
moving to an All-Wireless environment," said Richard Webb,
Directing Analyst, Wireless Broadband and Mobile for Infonetics
Research. "With deployments such as the Philadelphia School
District's School of the Future, educational institutions now
have a model to follow – one that demonstrates the productivity
and ROI benefits that can be achieved with this kind of wireless
infrastructure. The Meru Networks next-generation platform is
optimized for pervasive, campus-wide deployments of converged
voice, data and video, and this has enabled Meru to position
itself as a leading wireless infrastructure vendor within the
education market."
Amongst the many K-12 institutions that have adopted Meru
technology over the past 12 months are Philadelphia School
District's School of the Future, Mona Shores School District,
Hilton Central School District, Rush-Henrietta School District,
The Presentation School, New Castle Schools and Victor Central
School District.
One such customer, Mona Shores, a K-12 school district in
Muskegon, Michigan, has deployed Meru's Wireless LAN System
across its entire district. Serving approximately 4,300
students, 225 teachers and 550 employees, the WLAN will serve as
the primary access network for these users, providing
cost-effective, high-speed Internet access, email, streaming
media, standards-based testing, grading, web-page authoring and
a variety of database applications. After evaluating several
WLAN solutions, including Cisco's, Mona Shores, partnering with
Arialink Broadband out of Lansing Michigan, determined that
Meru's WLAN System, with its coordinated, cellular-like
architecture, was the most advantageous for its deployment. Said
Lane White, Director of Technology, Mona Shores School District,
"Meru's unique single channel approach dramatically simplified
deployment and management of our wireless network. With Meru's
WLAN System, we are saving time and money from both the
administrative perspective, as well as saving teachers and
students valuable time in the classroom. This translates into a
better learning environment for the students in our district."
Meru has also won a number of higher education deployments
including State University of New York (SUNY) Farmingdale,
Cedarville University, Truckee Meadows Community College, Boise
State University, College of Engineering, Washington State
University, St. Louis, and Nazareth College. These sites add to
the extensive list of higher education institutions already
using Meru equipment including: Hobart & William Smith Colleges,
Northern Michigan University, University of Illinois, University
of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Stonybrook University and
University of Texas at Dallas.
Hobart and William Smith Colleges (HWS), a coordinate, private,
liberal arts institution in Geneva, N.Y., experienced growing
demand for wireless connectivity from its 2,300 member community
of students and faculty since an initial WLAN installation in
2002. HWS deployed Meru's WLAN System in 2005 to solve many of
the problems they experienced with traditional WLAN solutions
including co-channel interference that resulted when neighboring
WLAN access points overlapped their coverage areas, and the
performance degradation that occurred in classrooms when an
increasing number of users quickly overwhelmed the legacy
wireless equipments' ability to maintain quality connections.
"Our Wireless LAN has become a fundamental part of our overall
IT Strategy," said Mike Ruiz, network and systems engineer at
Hobart and William Smith Colleges. "It is a key factor in
delivering a technology enriched social and academic learning
environment; it is also a very useful supplement to our wired
network for business needs. Meru's WLAN System was absolutely
the only platform on which we could build this kind of pervasive
wireless network, serving both the current and future needs of
our Colleges."
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.