CampusKey is a private upmarket student housing scheme offering a secure, private and stylish home-away-from-home experience in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, Potchefstroom in the North West Province, Pretoria in Gauteng and Bloemfontein in the Free State.
As part of its comprehensive quality living offering, CampusKey provides students with superior internet connectivity through its strategically designed communications network.
Philip Schoeman, key account manager at wireless IP convergence company MiRO, explains that existing network solutions, based on the 802.11N standard, are plagued by slower connection speeds and interference issues. With a total of 11 campus locations completed, a sustainable and future-proofed solution was required to ensure that standardisation on a specific product set would allow ongoing expansion of the various campus networks.
Formed 30 years ago, Infotech has developed a solid reputation as a software development house. The company developed the Skytracks brand which was later sold to Tracker as the well-known premier asset tracking software.
iSanity, a division within the company, focuses on managed services in terms of network infrastructures and wireless connectivity. A number of hotspots, developed at leading restaurants, underline the success of this division.
Ricardo Cant, account manager at iSanity, approached MiRO in October 2013 to discuss the applicability of the feature-rich UniFi enterprise wireless system from Ubiquiti. UniFi is a scalable enterprise access point solution designed to be easily deployed and managed.
iSanity’s requirements as the network solutions provider at the CampusKey sites, were for a high-speed, reliable wireless network to allow multiple students, situated at various access points throughout each campus, to readily achieve internet access and undertake fast and uninterrupted downloads. In addition, due to the upmarket appeal of the CampusKey buildings, the aesthetics of the solution played a large role in the decision.
“Infotech has a pre-existing relationship with MiRO which is characterised by high levels of communication and cooperation. MiRO continues to be a supplier of choice due to its high levels of product excellence and service delivery. The MiRO team assisted in the investigation of a suitable solution and assisted with the planning of the project,” says Cant.
iSanity is standardising on the UniFi system throughout all current and planned CampusKey sites and the first order, in late 2013, comprised 58 indoor units and four outdoor units for the first phase of the Potchefstroom campus. A further order of 85 indoor and six outdoor units for Potchefstroom Phase 2 and 85 indoor and six outdoor units for Bloemfontein Phase 1 was recently placed.
The business model proposed by Isanity for CampusKey is for an uncapped solution based on three packages. The first package is for a 386-512 Mbps speed, the second one (for browsing YouTube and Facebook, for instance) is a 1-2Mb solution and the higher end package is for use with gaming and Skype, for instance, and is for 2-5Mb capacity.
“We went live with the first project in mid-February 2014 and the UniFi systems are performing according to specification and providing seamless roaming access. Other products sometimes exhibit issues with multiple access points, but this is definitely not the case with Ubiquiti’s UniFi,” says Cant.
Schoeman explains that the UniFi system is not only extremely cost effective, but it is also easy to deploy and manage. The multi-lane RF technology isolates signals on the operating channel and removes adjacent channel interference. Wireless capacity and throughput are increased in high-density areas and multiple access points can operate in close proximity.
The zero-handoff roaming allows CampusKey users to roam anywhere on campus as they switch to the nearest access point. This capability makes multiple access points appear as a single access point and can therefore work with any user and requires no interaction from the user’s device.
According to Cant, the CampusKey installation networks are allegedly the largest of their kind in Africa. With the planned switchover of the Stellenbosch campuses to the system in the near future, the 250 UniFi units will escalate the sheer enormity of the project.
MiRO launched the UniFi enterprise solution in South Africa in October and pulled out all the stops to ensure that all project deadlines were met. Training and technical support played a big role in the successful implementation and commissioning of the project.
