Converged Access Improves Wireless Performance at South Island School, Hong Kong

South Island School in Hong Kong is made up of students from around the world, with 1,400 students from over 35 countries. One value that sets the school apart is its commitment to using technology in the classroom. For instance, every student has a laptop that they use to access e-books, watch educational videos, and complete homework assignments. Some exams are even taken digitally.

With wireless devices used daily by every student and faculty member, a stable network connection is almost as important as pencil and paper in classrooms. South Island School’s existing Cisco network had reached end of life, and the school needed to refresh the infrastructure with a network that could meet bandwidth needs for years to come.

“We looked at other vendors, but we were extremely impressed with how the existing Cisco equipment performed over the years,” says Victor Alamo, ICT manager at South Island Schools. “By upgrading to the latest Cisco access points and switches, we’d have an infrastructure that would keep up with our needs.”

We were looking for infrastructure that would last us a long time. By fitting Cisco’s access points with 802.11ac radio modules, we’re supporting the latest wireless standard for top performance.

If we need greater bandwidth in the future, Cisco’s modular Access Point design enables us to upgrade without investing in completely new access points.

Cisco Prime Infrastructure pulls together management of wired and wireless networks in a single, unified solution. This gives our ICT team greater control so we can adjust bandwidth as needed, such as assigning specific rooms higher priority during exams.

The visibility into the networks gives us more information than ever. We can identify classes that have greater bandwidth needs, monitor connections for hotspots, and even track down misplaced laptops.

Through services like FileWave and Casper, South Island School is using the increased bandwidth and stable connections to provide remote technical support.

“Better network performance means that we can expand our services to the school,” says Alamo.

Network products used in the network.

Wireless

Cisco Aironet 3702 Series Access Points

Routing and Switching

Cisco Catalyst 4507E Series Switches with Supervisor Engine 8-E

Cisco Catalyst 3850 Series Switches

Network Management

Cisco Prime Infrastructure