Schools prepare networks for two devices per child

Two years ago the Labor Government announced an initiative to put a PC in the hands of every secondary student in years nine to 12 by 2011.

Private schools were already leaping head of the one-to-one ratio, said Jonathan Ordman, director of Wavelink Communications, distributor of Meru Networks.

With the launches of the Apple iPad and other tablets, some private schools in NSW were discussing how to prepare their networks to handle two devices for every school child, Ordman said.

"Schools used to talk about a one-to-one ratio" with each student connecting a laptop to the wireless network,  Ordman said. "Now they are talking about two-to-one - a laptop plus an iPad or other tablet per student."

Ordman said private schools wanted to know how to improve their networks' ability to handle an increase in the number of wireless devices. Supporting a higher density of connections to a wireless network would in some cases require adding more wireless access points, he said.

Ordman said Meru was better at handling higher densities because its access points could share a single channel and provide overlapping coverage. Ordman claimed the single-channel network reduced the number of required access points by up to 30 percent compared to competitors.

Additional channels could be layered on top in the same coverage area without creating conflicts, he said.  

Wavelink was conducting a roadshow to capital cities demonstrating one Meru access point streaming separate video files to 24 devices simultaneously.