University of Nottingham Ningbo China: seamlessly connected to the world, with top 100 universities within easy reach

In September, when students of the University of Nottingham Ningbo returned to school and stepped into the student dormitory and turned on their mobile phones, they found some surprises: a new name "UNNC-Living" appeared in the Wi-Fi name list. When connected to the wireless network, people no longer need to reconnect when visiting each other or changing dormitories. Just sitting in the dormitory, they can travel to the academic ocean of the school with one click and easily access the intranet resources and course materials of domestic and foreign campuses. How did these "surprises" happen?

Traditional wireless faces challenges, Ningbo Nottingham starts to explore the road of "good" wireless

Ningbo University of Nottingham, inheriting the century-old glory of the University of Nottingham in the UK, was founded in 2004 in Ningbo, a famous international port city in the heart of the Yangtze River Delta Economic Center. It is China's first Sino-foreign cooperative university and a leader in international higher education innovation.

Building a bridge between the East and the West, promoting the symbiosis of cooperation and prosperity, crossing boundaries, and allowing the power of knowledge to take root in a wider land are the important responsibilities of the University of Nottingham Ningbo. However, driven by the wave of digitalization, as the scale of teachers and students continues to expand, the challenges faced by the school network have also increased. Especially for the network in the student apartment area, we often receive feedback from some students, "the network is often disconnected, and it will be disconnected when connected, and then the web interface will pop up again, and you need to re-enter the account password", "it shows that it is connected, but the Wi-Fi network page cannot be opened", "the foreign teaching resource platform opens slowly or cannot be entered", etc.

Before the renovation of the school's student dormitories, the network used two deployment solutions, one of which was an Ethernet solution. By deploying optical convergence switches in the dormitory building and extending them to the PoE access switches on each floor, the panels were connected to the APs in each dormitory via network cables. The deployed panel APs were based on the 802.11ac Wave 1 standard and lacked support for MU-MIMO, 4 spatial streams, and 160MHz bandwidth, which limited the performance of multi-device access, resulting in unstable connections and slow download speeds. At the same time, Category 5e twisted pair copper cables were used, which were easily affected by Ningbo's humid climate. Oxidation of contact points caused poor terminal connections and frequent disconnections, but fault location was difficult, which brought challenges to the maintenance team.

Another solution uses ONU to connect and power the APs in the dormitory, but the splitting ratio problem results in substandard speeds and poor user experience. The small home routers of different brands purchased by students interfere with each other, causing frequency hopping and disconnection of terminals. Placing information boxes in the corridor increases the risk of failure, and the design of the terminal dumb devices makes troubleshooting time-consuming and labor-intensive.

Furthermore, the two networks are completely physically isolated. When students move to new dormitories and need to switch network areas, they need to settle Internet charges and purchase new network packages. Students cannot access resources according to the location of the IDC computer room.

Based on this, the University of Nottingham Ningbo decided to build a smooth, secure and stable pure wireless network for teachers and students at the beginning of the new semester. Ruijie's all-optical wireless starry sky solution met the University of Nottingham Ningbo, opening up the exploration of "good" wireless.

Student apartments meet wireless starry sky, pure wireless connection between academics and life

After the upgrade of the wireless starry sky solution, the student dormitory network adopts an all-optical deployment. The star host RG-AM5754-SF-P is deployed in the weak-current room of each dormitory building. The optoelectronic parallel design is directly connected to the wireless AP in the dormitory through an optoelectronic hybrid cable to achieve long-distance data transmission and centralized power supply . No active equipment or chassis is required in the middle . The AP upgrade can directly replace the 10 Gigabit product, which is safe and easy to expand. The Wi-Fi 6 wireless planet AP deployed in the dormitory and the new generation Wi-Fi 7 AP in the lobby can meet the network needs of students in the apartment.

Centralized power supply, safe and reliable

The Star host provides point-to-point PoE power supply directly to the AP in the dormitory through a hybrid optical-electrical cable, avoiding the problem of power supply in the dormitory, eliminating the weak-current rooms on the floors, simplifying the wiring and greatly reducing the number of weak-current rooms that need to be maintained .

All-optical networking, ten years of worry-free

Optical fiber hybrid cables use optical fiber as the transmission medium to replace traditional network cables, supporting higher bandwidth and lower latency . Links do not need to be upgraded frequently , and their service life is longer than that of network cables . When the dormitory network is subsequently upgraded to newer Wi-Fi technology, there is no need to worry about insufficient upstream bandwidth and having to start over with the wiring.

Pure wireless connection, stable network and flexible expansion

The flexible intelligent distribution mode of the Star host can be compatible with Planet AP, ordinary AP and installed AP access at the same time, and there is no need to adjust the working mode when adding other APs. A total of 5,000+ units were deployed in this dormitory network upgrade, covering wireless APs such as Planet AP RG-MAP852-SF-MT and indoor panel AP RG-AP180-L (V3). Wireless APs fully cover student apartments , including the lobby on the first floor, and some buildings even have one AP per person. Pure wireless connection, no wired interface is provided in the dormitory, which not only ensures the security of network use but also avoids the safety hazards caused by power supply in the dormitory. At the same time, it also reduces the number of failure points, greatly reduces the pressure of operation and maintenance, and provides teachers and students with better network services.

Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7, Gigabit access rate full coverage

All APs in the dormitory use the Wi-Fi 6 wireless protocol , which can provide higher data transmission speeds, greater network capacity, lower latency, and more efficient multi-device parallel communication. In the dormitory, the design of the AP ensures full signal coverage within a range of 0 to 10 meters, including typical locations such as bathroom doors and balconies. The terminal device can quickly connect and obtain an IP address within 3 seconds . Students can quickly open a web page within 5 seconds and enjoy smooth playback of videos and voice calls without waiting, providing a seamless network experience. Not only in the dormitory, the Wi-Fi 7 deployed in the lobby also guarantees students' network needs in other areas of the apartment building.

Map-based O&M, intelligent network optimization

The WIS network twin platform that comes with the solution can realize the configuration and optimization of the entire network, and the operation and maintenance personnel can complete the equipment debugging without going to the site. The WIS network twin platform supports multi-perspective network analysis, and visualizes key indicators such as network stability, terminal online experience, access experience, latency and packet loss from different perspectives such as the overall situation, building, and floor. Through map-based operation and maintenance, school operation and maintenance personnel can quickly identify areas with poor wireless experience, automatically perform remote optimization, and greatly improve the efficiency of wireless network operation and maintenance management.

It is worth mentioning that the upgrade of the student dormitory network has achieved the integration of three networks (China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom) . Through a unified network platform, unified wired and wireless access, and linkage between the export router and the authentication platform, it can realize intelligent routing based on real-name users, and automatic load balancing to ensure that each connection request is on the fastest network line, ensuring flexible access to the intranet or extranet, improving students' Internet experience, and supporting campus intranet interconnection. Students only need to sit in their apartment rooms to access the intranet resources and course materials of the three schools with one click.

Ningbo University of Nottingham, as China's first Sino-foreign cooperative university and a leader in international higher education innovation, has been carrying the mission of connecting Eastern and Western cultures and promoting international exchanges since its inception. It is well aware that the power of education lies in crossing boundaries, stimulating potential, and cultivating talents with a global vision. In the digital age, the Internet is not only a bridge connecting knowledge, but also an important force in promoting educational innovation. It is hoped that through the upgrade of the student apartment network, every student of Ningbo University of Nottingham can shine in this more open, more inclusive, and more interconnected academic environment, become a bridge connecting the world, and become a force for social progress.