BYOD in Education: Challenges

Part 2 of a 5 Part Series

The first and foremost problem that a school may experience is the lack of a robust wireless platform. Currently, a lot of schools have only a minimal wireless solution in place, as there was only a need to support a handful of laptop carts here or there. With the adoption of BYOD, there may be literally hundreds of devices connected at any one time, with a hundred or more trying to connect to a single wireless access point. Wireless solutions from four or five years ago will more than likely not support the level of connectivity required for this number of devices.

The result is frustrated staff and students because of disconnections, very slow connections, or no connectivity at all. Consumer based wireless solutions are not designed for the number of devices that can be connected in these situations. To handle wireless of this magnitude requires a managed, enterprise class wireless solution that is expandable to handle growth for the future.

For the past few months, Questeq has been expanding its knowledge, partnerships, and services to handle this challenge. We feel that there is a tremendous need to examine what a district currently has, where their curriculum is in relation to what devices are currently supported, and where they plan on going over the next few years. A strategic plan becomes a “must have” to design a solution that will meet current needs as well as future curriculum goals. Many schools miss out on the vast array of digital resources available because they cannot support all students accessing them reliably with their current equipment.

– John Sanderbeck, Questeq Infrastructure Engineer

Read Part 1 of this BYOD series here.