Criswell College

Criswell College has always faced IT infrastructure issues with thick walls (concrete and terra cotta designs) and lack of accessible cabling, going back to the 1950s when most of its three buildings were built. Initially in 2010 when Rob Merryman arrived as the lead point of contact for all things IT, the school didn’t have a wireless network, but students and teachers began asking. In response, Rob scraped together some consumer-grade Access Points and created separate wireless networks for students and faculty. Supporting only 150-200 users it created demand and the realization that “we need something better.” Shortly after, Rob invested in an Ubiquiti wireless network and quickly outgrew its capacity and reliability. Thunderstorms and heavy weather would cause an AP to fail every 6-8 months. They also found it couldn’t expand or provide coverage through walls.

Rob’s Wi-Fi challenges came to a peak in 2017 as the school was designated to host over 2000 users for an annual convention. Rob worked with channel partner Skyhelm to assess what a real Wi-Fi network could do to relieve the issues, and the results have been Stellar. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar wireless network is just what Rob needed to deliver reliability, nearly zero maintenance and interoperate with his existing local area network.