Case Study | Nova Scotia Community College
Novia Scotia Community College
• Provide high-density Wi-Fi to 20,000 students and the surrounding community
• In just eight months, the team deployed over 750 APs across 13 campuses
• Network visibility and analytics help drive business and technology decisions
As the province’s only community
college system, Nova Scotia
Community College (NSCC) is focused
on helping to build the economy and
quality of life of the province through
education and innovation. With this
goal in mind, NSCC aims to prepare
approximately 20,000 students
annually to enter the workforce. To
live this mission and ensure student success, it is critical that the
community is supported with leading-edge, innovative learning and
teaching technology to provide a flexible and quality educational
experience, engaging students wherever they are. With 13
campuses, NSCC serves as more than just a place of learning, but
also as a common space for members of the community to gather
and collaborate. These internal and community needs require
reliable and easily accessible Wi-Fi across all sites. With a centralized
IT team responsible for technology service delivery across the
province, a new wireless solution that could be managed remotely
with minimal support and allow students and guests self-service
access to the network was critical.
Removing hardware with a cloud-managed solution
As NSCC’s controller-based, legacy infrastructure approached end-
of-life, Jim Kirk, Digital Innovation and Technology Director, Dale
Facey, Digital Innovation and Technology Manager, and Stephen
Harris, Core Services Administrator, knew it was time for an upgrade.
Their on-premises solution was difficult to maintain and keep up-to-
date; they often had hardware running old firmware versions due
to challenges with upgrades. In addition, they wanted to replace all
of their controllers and have fewer physical assets sitting on their
network. They recognized that it was also difficult for community
members and guests to use the wireless, since there was no self-
service guest network configured. Plus, with a 69% increase in peak
Wi-Fi connections in a four-year period, the team knew it needed
to future-proof the network as the increase in technical devices
brought to campuses by students, staff and visitors was only going to
continue to grow. Therefore, the team decided to look for a cloud-
based solution that was easier to manage and could provide users
with the access they needed. After evaluating a few vendors, they
decided to deploy Cisco Meraki MR42 and MR52 wireless access
points (APs) across the campuses due to their superior design, high-
density, and intuitive manageability.
In just eight months, the team deployed over 750 APs across the 13
campuses. This was no small feat; being able to accomplish such an
aggressive timeline was made possible with the ease of installation
provided by Meraki. In some cases, the team was able to deploy
50+ APs in one day by pre-configuring hardware in the Meraki
dashboard before deployment. Harris added, “The installation was
pretty seamless. I loved the onboarding. You just input the sales
order and it dropped all of the access points right into the inventory
system so you didn’t have to manually scan any barcodes or serial
numbers.” Due to the magnitude of the deployment, some campuses
had a phased rollout, where the legacy system and new system
were running side-by-side. Normally, this would have been an issue,
since APs in close proximity normally compete with each other.
However, the team was surprised to find that by editing the radio
settings in the Meraki dashboard, the disparate systems were able to
cohabitate until the installation was complete.
Meraki APs now rest in classrooms, common rooms, cafeterias,
auditoriums, residence halls, hallways, and stairwells. There are four
main SSIDs: Eduroam, NSCC Guest NSCC 180 (a hidden SSID for
college-managed devices), and IoT. Eduroam, a global Wi-Fi roaming
service, allows students from any academic institution to securely
connect to the internet using their school username and password.
Eighty percent of NSCC traffic comes from Eduroam, primarily from
student and staff personal devices. The guest network is accessible
through a splash page, requires SMS authentication to log onto the
internet, has a four-hour expiration, and limits the bandwidth to 2mbp
per client to deter students from choosing this SSID over Eduroam.
Neither the Eduroam or guest SSIDs have access to the college
network; that is reserved for the NSCC 180 SSID. College-owned
devices automatically connect to this SSID through a group policy
and have full access to the college network with no traffic shaping
and filtering. Only the 2,000+ college employees can access this
network. Lastly, their IoT network uses a pre-shared key for devices
that cannot get onto an 802.1x network, such as HVAC systems
and other facility devices. Having these separate and secure SSIDs
has allowed all users to easily access the network, with self-service
access for guests, and offer seamless roaming for students between
campuses, which was not possible with their previous solution.
2 Cisco Systems, Inc. | 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94158 | (415) 432-1000 | sales@meraki.com
“There’s better stability and uptime with
Meraki access points. The self-serve guest
wireless was a big hit, people really like it.
Even community members that come in and
aren’t familiar with the set up can get on
the Wi-Fi right away.”
-- Stephen Harris, Core Services Administrator
With their new cloud-managed wireless solution, the team has
increased network reliability, up-time, and visibility. Previously,
they would have around five APs down at any given time because
they were running the wrong software version. Now, with Meraki,
the team can easily push firmware upgrades remotely overnight,
ensuring all of their APs are always up to date. This not only
increases network security, but reduces downtime and headaches
for the IT team. They also take advantage of the increased visibility
through the Meraki dashboard, which shows application layer,
device, and client visibility, so they can easily identify who their
users are and their Wi-Fi usage. Harris added, “The reporting tools
and the maintenance of the system is a lot better. Before, we had
a really hard time finding out how many gigs a client had used in a
two hour period. With Meraki, it’s in the dashboard and I can see it
in five seconds.” For example, the team now knows that 70% of their
students have an iPhone, which was a big surprise for a community
college system. Insights like this drive business decisions for the
college. Kirk added, “That data is very informative for us as we plan,
design, and develop new services and applications for students
going forward.” The team also uses Wireless Health, a feature in the
Meraki dashboard, to see where there are failed connections and to
help troubleshoot clients that are having problems connecting.
With a drop in network complaints since the new system was
installed, the IT team concludes that students and guests are very
happy with the new network. Facey added, “Prior to the migration,
the feedback I received was generally negative, especially around
performance. Not hearing that anymore tells me that it’s working
much better.” This has ensured students have a better experience
on campus and can focus on attending class and completing
assignments, not on connecting to the network.
Giving Back to the Community with Public Wi-Fi

“We are viewed as an asset in the

communities we serve around the province.
Community members can walk in and
access our libraries and use our cafeterias,
so why shouldn’t we give them free access
to the internet? Meraki has enabled us to do
that.”
-- Jim Kirk, Director of Digital Innovation and Technology

While NSCC’s primary goal is to serve its student population, it also

recognizes that as a community college, the campus spaces are
available to a much broader audience. From high school students,
to private partners, to neighbors, their campuses are a part of the
community. Being able to provide those communities with free
internet access has opened the door to new possibilities for visitors
and positioned NSCC as an extremely valuable resource across the
province. The NSCC IT team is committed to supporting the current
and future technology needs of the college to ensure its students
graduate with the technological skills they need to succeed and that
contribute to the broader sense of community. Kirk explained, “From
a business point of view, like everybody else in higher education,
Wi-Fi is the service we provide that is highest in demand. We want
to stay ahead of that exponential demand curve by continuing to
chase whatever the leading edge technology is at the time. For this
business solution, Cisco Meraki has enabled that for NSCC.”

3 Cisco Systems, Inc. | 500 Terry A. Francois Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94158 | (415) 432-1000 | sales@meraki.com