"The campus network signal is better, and the network is faster! The speed is so fast that I wish it could be slower." This is a message from the official WeChat page of the Dalian University of Foreign Languages (DUFL). In its official WeChat article published recently, the students were exhilarated about the news that the second phase of the wireless campus network was officially launched.

They were exhilarated because the long-awaited Wi-Fi 6 was finally here.

The second phase of the DUFL campus network covers all indoor public areas such as classrooms, canteens, and comprehensive buildings, as well as outdoor public areas such as basketball courts, tennis courts, and the surroundings of teaching buildings, realizing full coverage of the wireless campus network. The campus network is speeded up and the charges are lowered. The bandwidth has been increased from 2.4Gbps to 5.7Gbps, and the fee has been adjusted from the previous RMB 20 to RMB 12, providing better network services for teachers and students. The wireless equipment of the second phase of the wireless campus network supports Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax). The ultra-high performance can easily meet the diverse application needs of classrooms, canteens, and libraries on campus, and provide better network services for teachers and students.

Continuous innovation of classroom applications has significantly increased the Wi-Fi requirements

With the development of university informatization, Dalian University of Foreign Languages has paid more and more attention to the university's wireless network, and planned to build a comprehensive campus Wi-Fi, using modern information technology to promote education reform and achieve leapfrogging development of educational innovation.

In 2015, the university began to build the first phase of the wireless campus network. Ruijie’s Simplicity Wireless Solution was deployed in the outdoor area, offices, teaching area, and dormitories, which made DUFL the first university in Dalian to use Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) for wireless coverage.

In 2018, as classroom reform continued to advance, the need for teachers and students to use digital products for interaction in class was growing, and the high-definition classroom recording applications were also increasing. Therefore, the wireless network needed to support the change of teaching model. Particularly for language teaching, teachers have an urgent need for high-bandwidth classroom teaching applications such as IPTV and high-definition video. They will also ask the students to use their own notebooks to access the video resources via the wireless network. Therefore, each student should be guaranteed with certain bandwidth.

▲ High-quality wireless network is required for different application scenarios in the university

In addition, in places such as VR classrooms, offices, libraries, conference rooms, and lecture halls, the wireless networks are also required to meet the high-concurrency, high-bandwidth, and low-latency requirements of the high-density scenarios, increasing the flexibility and convenience of education reform. Based on the above requirements, the phase 2 construction of the DUFL wireless network was officially launched.

New Wi-Fi standard for phase 2

In the early stage of preparation for the second phase of the wireless network planning, the latest Wi-Fi 6 standard was officially released. Based on the advantages of Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac), the coding and modulation enhancement of Wi-Fi 6 has greatly improved the efficiency of spatial reuse, so that each AP can communicate with more devices at the same time, which can achieve higher-density deployment, lower latency, broader coverage, and higher speed. In addition, its improvement in low power consumption is particularly friendly for the active IoT devices in smart campus.

In the early stage of construction, the university had studied the feasibility of the Wi-Fi 6 solution with Ruijie Networks, considering the AP performance and capacity, terminal access capability, unified management of phase 1, and subsequent expansion of the Internet of Things. After passing the field test, Ruijie Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) RG-AP850-I was adopted. With tri-radio design and up to 6.8Gbps access speed, the AP supports uplink speeds up to 3 Gbps and the expansion of other modules such as Internet of Things, which greatly enriches the application scenarios on campus. While meeting the bandwidth requirements of teachers and students in classroom teaching, it also ensures that the solution will stay on the cutting edge within the next five years.

▲ Ruijie wireless AP deployed in the classroom

The Wi-Fi 6 wireless campus network can be optimized via Ruijie WIS wireless AI cloud platform, providing the ultimate experience for teachers and students in each teaching scenario.

Fast and wide-coverage wireless campus with high-density AP deployment

Seeing the university's wireless network upgraded with new equipment, a student gladly left a message on the official WeChat page, “I am no longer worried of the embarrassment of waiting for payment in the cafeteria, and the disquietude of not able to open the WeChat images in the second teaching building. I also heard that it can be cheaper!”

What are the advantages of the Wi-Fi 6 network complimented by the teachers and students?

The first advantage is high speed. Compared to Wi-Fi 5, the network bandwidth is increased by 4 times, while the number of concurrent users is increased by 4 times, and the transmission latency is reduced by more than 60%. Wi-Fi 6 can easily cope with application scenarios such as classrooms, cafeterias, and libraries that require ultra-large bandwidth, ultra-high-density access, and ultra-low latency, providing teachers and students with a better network experience.

The second advantage is wide coverage. The second phase of the wireless campus network covers all indoor public areas such as classrooms, canteens, and comprehensive buildings, as well as outdoor public areas such as basketball courts, tennis courts, and the surroundings of teaching buildings, enhancing the signal coverage of playgrounds and areas around Mingyang Lake and Inner Ring Road. The university has achieved full coverage of the wireless campus network. Internet access for the students is no longer limited to the dormitories. They can now connect to the wireless campus network in all areas including offices and teaching areas.

▲ Wi-Fi 6 allows teachers and students to teach and learn efficiently

The third advantage is high-density AP deployment. The second phase of the wireless campus network has adopted a high-density deployment solution in classrooms, canteens and other places with high user density. By designing the network capacity based on 80 users per wireless AP, the cluster deployment ensures that every teacher and student can experience the best network quality. 

In terms of application, the wireless campus network continues to adopt the same model as phase 1 by using seamless access to achieve seamless roaming for teachers and students in the wireless coverage area of the entire campus network. In addition, DUFL’s official WeChat service has been re-optimized. Users can check the details of general campus network services such as network fee recharge, data usage, temporary suspension, network plan changes and troubleshooting. In addition, with the second phase of wireless campus network, the university can flexibly allocate network resources using SDN, thereby staying ahead of other Dalian universities.

The successful deployment and trial run of the Wi-Fi 6 wireless campus network helped the DUFL become a new benchmark for wireless campus networks in universities nationwide. The high-speed, high-concurrency, high-security, and anti-interference wireless network will help the education informatization of DUFL to achieve leapfrogging development.