M.I.T. Continues Innovative Legacy with Next-Generation Wireless Campus

Established in 1861, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced seven Nobel Prize winners from its ranks, transforming high-tech research concepts into remarkable applications. Today, the pioneering college is renowned for its engineering curriculum, technological contributions and top ranked business school.

MIT's IT department sought to build on the vision of an interconnected college campus, returning to the philosophy behind the original campus design. For IT executives, it was important to create the foundations of an unwired campus worthy of MIT's innovative legacy. With complete wireless connectivity, the school could inspire scientific exchange, support next-generation technology experiments and reinforce its brand identity as an innovator.

As their first priority, the school's IT team needed to provide in-building wireless coverage for the new 335,000 square foot Stata Center for Computer, Information and Intelligence Sciences. They then discovered that MIT's 226,000 square foot Broad Institute for medical genomics had already deployed the MobileAccess solution with the help of In-Building Cellular, a wireless coverage design and installation expert. The solution proved successful in bringing wireless signals indoors and provided students and staff with wireless access anywhere inside the building. The deployment's success peaked the IT team's curiosity as they sought to find a solution to all of MIT's wireless coverage challenges.

Ideally, MIT's IT executives wanted to provide reliable wireless coverage in both buildings by extending the Broad Institute building's radio frequency (RF) wireless signal sources to the Stata Center. As an added benefit, wireless operators could lower costs by installing and managing just one donor antenna site to feed RF to the entire campus. However, executives were unsure of feasibility and wondered if this approach would compromise performance.

With 10,000 students enrolled at MIT, the IT team also wanted to support multiple services simultaneously, including cellular voice and data services from Cingular, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon. Additionally, they were aware that many of the school's programs were growing more dependent on WLAN (802.11 a/b/g) services, which would eventually be needed in dormitories, media laboratories and Sloan business school buildings still under construction.

Flexibility was another critical factor since MIT's $750 million construction efforts would add another 547,000 square feet of space requiring wireless coverage. And every year a new crop of tech-savvy students would demand access to emerging wireless services. In an environment of constant change, the IT department wanted to activate new services at any time, without having to evacuate classrooms, re-wire buildings and interrupt existing services.

Working closely with building engineers and In-Building Cellular, the school's IT executives sought to build the foundations for a next-generation wireless campus---an inter-connected environment that would impress prospective students, serve current students and faculty and fuel innovation for years to come.

The Solution

After assessing the Broad Institute's wireless deployment, MIT's IT department selected the innovative MobileAccess Universal Wireless Network platform to meet their campus-wide connectivity goals. The solution's universal architecture and scalability addresses all of MIT's current and future wireless requirements.

The MobileAccess Universal Wireless Network's hybrid fiber-coax cabling infrastructure delivers external RF signals from their sources in the Broad Institute's wiring closets to the Stata Center, while maintaining signal quality. This unified, multi-service platform provides pervasive wireless coverage in both buildings and easily scales to deliver wireless coverage for the entire campus.

With new construction in progress, MIT's IT staff was impressed with the solution's modularity; they can activate wireless services at anytime without re-wiring. The MobileAccess solution's adaptable Wire-it-Once^TM architecture makes adding future wireless services as simple as adding the appropriate service module in a building's wiring closets.

The MobileAccess deployment provides multi-service wireless coverage for cell/PCS, iDEN, and SMR services in both the Stata and Broad Institute buildings, over a common cabled infrastructure. IT managers can even support advanced WLAN applications on the same platform, with the addition of MobileAccess WLAN service modules in wiring closets. Providing WLAN services does not require separate cabling and MIT can spread the costs of their WLAN deployment across their other wireless offerings.

From a maintenance standpoint, the MobileAccess solution's proactive and real-time management tools monitor the campus-wide network from end-to-end. And because the MobileAccess architecture clusters all managed network components in wiring closets, IT managers do not have to evacuate classrooms to access ceiling mounted fixtures. Wireless services and students are unaffected by ‘behind the scenes' network management activities.

With the MobileAccess Universal Wireless platform, MIT is realizing the vision of a next-generation wireless campus worthy of the school's name and legacy. Wireless connectivity is fueling campus-wide collaboration so that students and faculty can continue transforming science into solutions.

About MobileAccess

MobileAccess Networks is an enterprise wireless innovator that provides a universal platform for connecting the people and applications that drive business. The company's intelligent, in-building infrastructure solution is the key to mainstream wireless connectivity in hospitals, office buildings, public venues and other large-scale facilities. The MobileAccess Universal Wireless Network delivers business-quality performance, scalability, security and signal reliability to more than 1000 customers, including Aladdin Resort and Casino, ALLTEL Stadium, American University, Clarian Health Partners, Hearst Corporation, Lehman Brothers, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Oakland International Airport, SeaMobile and The Homer Building. For more information, visit www.mobileaccess.com.

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