Cabling Education Super Highway

The Challenge

Education Super Highway seeked a Managed Service Provider to design, install, operate, and maintain a High Speed Internet Access Wi-Fi system for residential multi-dwelling unit (MDU) buildings. The goal was to provide free Wi-Fi networks in residential buildings located in underserved areas through the the City of Oakland, where over 20% of the residents lack Internet access.

Our Solution

Our engineers went out and site-surveyed five (5) diferent residential apartment buildings to determine the requirements needed to run and install a low-cost Wi-Fi 6 environment. We were provided the following requirements:

Wi-Fi coverage to 100% of units and common areas, e.g. the lobby, community rooms, hallways.etc
Wi-Fi coverage must be minimum of -65 dBm inside all living areas of each unit.
A centralized cloud-based wireless controller and management system.
All wireless access points must be minimum of 2x2:2, dual band (2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz).
Each apartment unit’s preferred bandwidth requirement of 100/100 Mbps, download and upload speeds.
Must support multiple SSIDs for admin sta, tenants, guests, roaming throughout the property.

The Results

Accend’s team site surveyed all properties and provided a heatmap covering all floors in all five (5) residential properties and determined over 98 Wi-Fi Access Points were required. Some properties had three to four oors, concrete walls, and included both indoor and outdoor Access Points

Accend proposed the following equipment:

CAT6 cables (both indoor and outdoor cables)
TP-Link OC200 Omada Cloud Controller
TP-Link JetStream 28-Port Gigabit L2+ Managed Switch with 24-port PoE+
TP-Link EAP620 HD-V3 AX1800 Wi-Fi6 Access Point for Indoor
TP-Link EAP-610 Outdoor AX1800 Wireless Dual-Band
Tripp Lite Master-Power 6U Wall Mount Rack Enclosure Server Cabinet Wall Mount
SRWCOMBO Replacement Combination Lock Wall Mount Rack Enclosure Cabinet (to secure the equipment)

We designed, installed, and configured all the above network equipment. All CAT6 cables were measured and terminated for all access points with proper cable length
We configured all Wi-Fi SSIDs according to requirement and ensure the wireless speed were within the -65 dBm up to the residential unit
Monitored and managed the TP-Link Controller and Wireless Access Points remotely 24x7