ASU Campus Nixes Fiber; Chooses Gigabit Wireless for Network Connectivity

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 11/17/08

The Mesa-based Polytechnic Campus of Arizona State University (ASU) has deployed BridgeWave's gigabit wireless radios to extend campus network connectivity to a nearby academic partner.

ASU's Child Development Center (CDC), a research and internship lab for students studying education and other child-focused degrees, has been designed to provide access to real-world classroom settings for training, ideally via video conferencing, with Williams Community School (WSC) students. WSC is also based on the Mesa campus. ASU's challenge was connecting the two sites to accommodate data, voice over IP, and video, but without installing fiber, which was estimated at a cost of $600,000.

The ASU team evaluating solutions sought a wireless solution that would accommodate up to a gigabit of data transfer and provide near-perfect reliability and availability. Another concern was identifying a product that could withstand torrential downpours and monsoons. BridgeWave's AdaptRate technology switches transmissions from the original gigabit capacity to 100 Mb/s data rates during intense weather or torrential downpours, in order to maintain a highly available link. ASU ultimately selected BridgeWave's AR60X.

"ASU was looking for an affordable solution to provide reliable backbone network connectivity between the CDC and Williams Community School," said Antonio Carrera, network project manager. "We realized that BridgeWave's radios were the only solution that would provide fiber-equivalent connectivity, even in unfavorable weather conditions, and sure enough, the radio has never gone down. Not only did BridgeWave's AR60X product save us substantial amounts of time and money, it also provided more network capacity than competing solutions."