Case Studies

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North Okanagan-Shuswap School District

At a time of tight budgets in the educational sector, it's not hard to see why this Salmon Arm, British Columbia, School District chose wireless technology to provide the highspeed links it needed to run its operations. The decision by the North Okanagan Shuswap School District to install and implement WaveRider Communications Inc.'s NCL135 wireless bridge router currently saves the organization more than $700 in monthly leased line charges, and gives staff at the School District's technical center high-speed access to its central headquarters, located four kilometers (2.5 miles) away. The central headquarters currently houses all servers for the School District's intranet, as well as student management, financial services, and administration systems.

The Technical Center maintains a database of all electronic teaching and educational resources that are available to teachers. It also conducts research and development and testing on new software for the School District's operating systems and application programs. Robert Spraggs, network systems technician at the Technical Center, expects that it will take less than a year for the School District to see a recovery of its investment in the wireless bridge technology.

The WaveRider wireless bridge solution virtually eliminates any surprise expenses that would strain the School District's annual budget, says Spraggs. "When we leased lines from the telephone company, we would incur packet charges in some locations that we hadn't anticipated. With a wireless solution all costs are established when we sign the contract. There are no unexpected transmission charges at a later date."

Spraggs adds that another important advantage of choosing a wireless solution is that the School District is no longer vulnerable to network breakdowns because a line has been accidentally cut by a contractor or construction crew. "If a line is severed, our network goes down and our Intranet links are disrupted. With the wireless solution, we have more control over network reliability. I can troubleshoot network problems much more quickly. Equipment maintenance is also easier because we only have to call one number if we have any questions or need assistance."

Spraggs also says that the wireless routers enable the School District to be more productive. The high-speed links enable the Technical Center to quickly update the resources database at the School District's central headquarters and test new software programs. The biweekly resources update, which includes resource center catalogs, films, multimedia items, and electronic science resource kits, took up to two hours to perform prior to installation of the wireless router. The same task is now completed in ten minutes, giving teachers more timely access to new educational resources and teaching tools. Faster access to results of systems and software tests and research on new wide area network connectivity options also allow quicker decisions on new updates or software purchases.

Spraggs feels that in choosing wireless connectivity the North Okanagan-Shuswap School District is pioneering a growing trend, "The use of this technology to provide high-speed access will increase significantly in the coming months as organizations look for more cost effective and efficient ways for establishing high-speed connectivity."

Spraggs expects more educational institutions and businesses to implement highspeed wireless links. "Wireless technology is very stable and offers the throughput of fibre. Because you recover your costs so quickly, it is difficult to justify not choosing a wireless solution."

Note 

The WaveRider NCL135 wireless bridge router is being used in other applications as well. Oak-dale, a small city near Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota has implemented new wireless link between the city hall complex and the public works building a half a mile away in order to give public works staff instant electronic access to the city's infrastructure.

Clemson University

Clemson University was founded in 1889, a legacy of Thomas Green Clemson, who willed his Fort Hill, South Carolina, plantation home, its surrounding farmlands and forest, and other property to the state of South Carolina to establish a technical and scientific institution.

In 2001, Clemson decided to test out a wireless bridging application to link its Administrative Programming Group (APG) to the central campus. The APG is located about 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) off campus, and is situated across Lake Hartwell from the central campus.

Prior to implementing a wireless bridge, the University paid a monthly fee to lease telco circuits to connect the 30 programmers located at the APG facility to the campus network. With the wireless bridging solution in place, however, the University can now put the monthly circuit cost to better use and still provide the APG personnel with highspeed, 11 Mbps connectivity.

Another Clemson University location that is benefiting from wireless bridging is Muster Farms. This University research farm is located 5 miles (8 kilometers) from campus. Since only a few personnel actually need access to the University's network assets, the location was never outfitted with a leased line. Whenever anyone at the Farm needed access to the University's network, they either made a trip to the campus or accessed the network via a slow dial-up modem. Wireless bridging now enables the Muster Farm people to have fast connectivity to the Clemson Network.

The University also has, or is in the process of providing, network connectivity to a number of off-campus County Extension Research Centers. Some of these centers have several buildings, and wireless bridging has proven to be a very cost effective way to connect them to each other and to the University's central network.

The Rolling Stones

The venerable rock and roll band, the Rolling Stones, have gone Wi-Fi, albeit with the help of Clear Channel Entertainment, the marketing and management arm of the tour. The band members use their Wi-Fi network to keep in touch with their loved ones back home, but the band's entourage generally uses Wi-Fi to manage the 2002-2003 Forty Licks world tour as the band travels from venue to venue. Specifically, the band members use the WLAN to send and receive emails and Word documents, while roadies and others use the network to share CAD drawings for stage and seating arrangements for the tour's venues.

The Stones' Wi-Fi network is built upon 3Com 802.11b wireless LAN equipment, including 3Com Access Point 8000s and their 802.11b wireless LAN building-to-building bridging gear. These are then connected to a satellite uplink from Hughes and a downlink antenna system. Approximately 140 Wi-Fi-enabled laptops allow the production office, promotion office, band and crew to access this mobile Wi-Fi network. This enables the tour's management, and the band, to always be connected not only to their loved ones, but also to the home office. The latter allows for rapid re-working of extra performance bookings, changes to seating plans, last-minute promotions, business negotiations with venue operators, and ticket pricing decisions.

The set-up is completely mobile, thus it can be set up at each concert venue within about an hour after arrival at a new venue. The band's IT crew can tailor the system, based on each unique concert site around the world, to provide complete coverage despite concrete, steel, or other traditional barriers.

Fans also benefit from the Stones' Wi-Fi system. The flexibility of the network allows the Stones' tour promotion team to pass on much more information about each performance to the band's fans. This allows the worldwide Stones fan community to stay current with the tour via the www.rollingstones.com website. Fans who have full membership on the site (either by having bought a concert ticket, or by paying a membership fee), have a "virtual ticket" to follow the tour around the world.

The band is also interested in doing regular live webcasts of the tour and has, in fact, successfully tested the system several times. There are still lots of technical "bugs" to be worked out, though. While some of the obstacles are technical, others are rooted in copyright and performance contract issues. However, the tour did run live streaming audio and video tests in Atlanta, with a live webcast of the setup of the stage.

The tour's management has found that Wi-Fi does help the Forty Licks world tour go more smoothly. For instance, behind the scenes, the network speeds up the preparation of the stage for the band's performance. By using radio links instead of cables, the Stones' production company can set up a venue-wide computer network far faster than normal, because employees can easily share detailed floor plans of venues and the Stones' stage set. This helps them to fine-tune the stage setup for every stop on the tour.

Todd Griffith, the satellite Internet specialist for the Stones tour, built and runs the Stones' mobile IT setup. He says that the Wi-Fi system evolved over a period of a couple of years. Originally, Griffith says, the tour tried to encourage the local performance facilities to put a DSL or Cable Modem drop into each concert venue. However, the advantages of touring with a complete, permanent networking solution, rather than recreating it at each concert facility, proved to make more sense.

If a venue has no clear line of site to the satellite, Griffith then goes to a backup plan-DSL, which is then connected to the 3Com access points. According to Griffith, the quantity of data handled by the system when it's up and running is equivalent to a small to medium-sized office. There are usually anywhere from 50 to 120 end-users accessing the network at any one time. The majority of the data that traverses the Wi-Fi links are email and word processing documents, but there are some larger file transfers also, e.g. CAD drawings of the stage set or the concert seating.

Griffith also laughingly says, "Sometimes we have to find a Starbucks that has an access point service to do last-minute upload and download. Sometimes I get asked why I go to Starbucks so much. I say, it's work."

According to Griffith, the business case for creating the wireless data system for the Stones is as follows. First, the satellite Internet component of the system allows Stones fans to follow the tour via the www.rollingstones.com website. The Stones' website is updated on a daily basis by people within the tour group.

Second, Griffith explains that there are real morale benefits to having high-speed Internet connections wherever the tour goes. It makes the long times away from home more bearable for the band and crew.

However, Griffith does admit that deploying and managing the mobile Wi-Fi system has been a challenge. He says that he found there to be a steep learning curve.

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