MONA SHORES SCHOOL DISTRICT SELECTS MERU
NETWORKS FOR K-12 ALL-WIRELESS CAMPUS NETWORK
Meru Wireless LAN System Delivers Applications for 4,000+
Students District
Sunnyvale, CA — September 18, 2006
Meru Networks, the global innovation leader in wireless
infrastructure for the All-Wireless Enterprise, today announced
that 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 district's wireless network 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.
Mona Shores began their wireless LAN deployment in April of 2006
and is in the process of rolling out wireless access to its
elementary, middle and high schools with a planned completion
date of fall 2006. The district initially installed Meru MC 3000
controllers and Meru AP 200 Access Points in its administration
building, then upon successful completion of this pilot,
proceeded with deploying APs throughout its four elementary
schools and its middle and high school. Currently, the district
has 120 APs deployed across seven buildings to deliver wireless
access to all students, faculty and employees.
To bring the benefits of the wireless network directly to
students and teachers in the classroom, Mona Shores is
distributing 650 wireless-ready laptops throughout the district.
These include laptops on mobile carts for the classrooms and a
laptop assigned to each teacher when he/she begins employment
with the district. Students will utilize the laptops for
Internet-based research, testing and a variety of learning
applications, while teachers and administrators will use their
laptops for testing, grading, email and communication, web-page
authoring and a variety of database applications. The district
expects that its users will experience improved mobility,
increased productivity and numerous cost-savings as a result of
the wireless LAN.
Partnering with Arialink Broadband of Lansing, Michigan, the
Mona Shores District evaluated a number of wireless LAN
solutions including Cisco's, but concluded that the Meru WLAN
System could offer the district some distinct advantages. Unlike
other WLAN systems in which Access Points work independently and
must be laboriously configured to deliver adjacent,
non-overlapping coverage, the Meru WLAN System provides a
seamless blanket of coverage that scales transparently and
delivers guaranteed quality of service to every WLAN user.
Specifically, the district was impressed with Meru's
coordinated, cellular-like architecture, including its patented
Air Traffic Control technology, in which all APs work together.
"Meru's unique single channel approach dramatically simplified
deployment and management of our wireless network," said Lane
White, Director of Technology, Mona Shores School District.
"With the number of laptops and portable devices in our
deployment, wired connectivity would have been a huge burden for
us from a setup, management and cost perspective. 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."
In addition to the data applications that Mona Shores is
currently deploying over the wireless LAN, they also plan to
roll out VoIP applications over the network in the near future.
Added Lane, "The fact that the Meru platform is already
optimized for both voice and data over wireless was a bonus for
us, as we look forward to increasing the number of
productivity-enhancing applications like voice that are running
over the network in the near future."
"Districts like Mona Shores are recognizing the numerous
benefits that wireless networking affords their staff and
students, and are looking for solutions that can not only
increase productivity, but also reduce costs and ensure that
their network is ready for an increasing number of users as well
as new applications in the future," said Ihab Abu-Hakima,
president and CEO of Meru Networks. "We welcome Mona Shores to
Meru's expanding higher education and K-12 user community.
Deployments like this are a gratifying validation that our WLAN
System is the ideal platform for the emerging All-Wireless
campus."
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.