IESE Business School taps Xirrus to provide wireless access in Barcelona and Madrid

Telecom Lead Europe: IESE Business School in Spain has tapped Xirrus to provide wireless access across its campus in Barcelona and Madrid.

The Xirrus technology connects 3,500 students, faculty members, and their guests with the School facilities.

As part of the enterprise networking, IESE has rolled out of its Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy providing internet access from any device. Smartphones, tablets, laptops or PCs using any operating system can gain access to the network, from anywhere on the campus.

The network, installed by Xirrus’ local partner Domo Informática, enables hundreds of students to log on simultaneously in the main lecture halls, along with thousands of others across the campus network and living areas.

Xirrus uses a sophisticated architecture of wireless arrays to provide up to 4x the coverage, 8x the bandwidth and 8x the capacity of traditional wireless deployments. Wi-Fi deployments built on a coverage-only model often fail under the heavy load of mobile devices and applications — with potentially disastrous consequences in business-critical scenarios.

“This installation was highly complex and technically challenging, encompassing multiple locations and needing to cope with spikes in demand when our lecture halls are full to capacity, with almost 1,000 students wanting to access internet or email facilities simultaneously,” said Tomás Tomeo, director of Corporate Development, IESE.

With 105 Arrays deployed in total, 74 in Barcelona and 31 on the Madrid campus, Xirrus delivers significantly higher density and performance per device and per radio than other major manufacturers, requiring significantly fewer devices per deployment. Fewer arrays mean less cabling, switching and expenditure on infrastructure in general during implementation.

“Our technology will help to connect the next generation of business executives and help them complete their studies using wireless connectivity. Only Xirrus’ technology can provide the arrays and networking capabilities to keep an organization like IESE running smoothly whenever and wherever wireless is needed,” said Sean Larner, vice president of International, Xirrus.

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