Get Smart on 802.11n
Benefits of 802.11n for Education
802.11n is the successor to 802.11a/b/g and the first Wi-Fi standard designed to provide a viable alternative to traditional wired switching.
- Coverage: Improved coverage through Multipath and MIMO; multiple transmit and receive paths
- Throughput: Over 2 times better than 802.11a/g
- Range: Over 6 times better than 802.11a/g
- Reliability: More resistant to interference and loss due to multipath
With the increased throughput, coverage, and reliability promised by 802.11n, educational institutions can finally deliver on the true vision for school and campus mobility.
802.11n Deployment Considerations
- While multipath increases coverage, it also leads to spiky cells and interference between floors, making channel planning more challenging. And to complicate matters, there are no planning tools on the market that can effectively plan 802.11n coverage.
- Most organizations will deploy 802.11n on the 5GHz band but the placement of APs in the 5GHz band is different from the 2.4GHz band. 802.11n coverage in 5GHz band, while better than the 802.11a coverage, does not have the same coverage pattern as the 2.4GHz band. This means that with the micro-cell architecture (i.e., traditional deployment using non-overlapping channels), 802.11n requires not only upgrade of APs, but also new cable pulls and new planning.
- Organizations investing in 802.11n for performance gains must anticipate the performance hit for mixed 802.11a/b/g/n networks. 802.11n exacerbates the backwards compatibility that already exists with legacy 802.11a/b/g devices, dramatically reducing throughput to accommodate the slowest common technology on the network.
The Meru 802.11n Advantage
- Maximum Performance & Backward Compatibility: Simultaneously delivers maximum 802.11n performance and all 802.11a/b/g devices. No performance hit to support lowest common denominator technology.
- Simplest Deployment: No channel planning required. All APs deployed on the same channel span to allow you to plug coverage holes by dropping an additional AP on same channel span without any impact on the coverage plan.
- Investment Protection: Use the same cabling infrastructure and simply replace today's 802.11abg APs with 802.11n APs. Powered by a standard 802.3af power source, hence no need for power injectors.
- Sensible Upgrade Path to 802.11n: Deploy Meru 802.11a/b/g today and upgrade to 11n with software—no need to change out radios.
