Five key steps to upgrading your wireless network

[Commentary] In early February, President Barack Obama made a $3 billion commitment to improve Internet access in the nation’s schools to meet the new technology standards required by Common Core online testing.

While this is no doubt cause for celebration, it marks the beginning of a very long road to fully realizing the benefits for education. Implementation of wireless infrastructure to support online testing will be a significant hurdle, as 70 percent of K-12 schools currently lack the wireless network performance or wired broadband Internet connectivity needed to make this a success, according to EducationSuperhighway.org. Compounding the problem is a new wireless standard, 802.11ac, which should be considered as part of any new infrastructure upgrade. Combined, these challenges are giving many school IT personnel a serious headache.

Here are five key steps that school administrators must take when building out their wireless networks:

1. Ensure proper application performance.
2. Plan for the right density of devices.
3. Anticipate peak usage.
4. Understand the changing landscape.
5. Future-proof for new WLAN standards.