Higher education isn’t just about hitting the books. Today it demands the best in networking, AI, and collaboration.

 

To that end, Georgetown University has taken a big step towards empowering its students, professors, and researchers for years to come.

Their platform of choice? Cisco Wi-Fi 7, supported by a sweeping network overhaul.

“Georgetown’s new network will deploy the latest Wi-Fi 7 technology,” said Doug Little, CIO of Georgetown University, whose main campus is in Washington D.C. “This will provide faster speeds, lower network latency, and the ability to service more devices on GU’s Wi-Fi system.”

These capabilities will be critical for next-gen higher education, which will demand massive data, sets, advanced AI modeling, and whatever comes next.

“This will allow for multi-streaming video for both professors and students in large lecture spaces,” Little continued, “easily pulling down huge shared online data sets for analysis, and allows us to be ready for the next generation of simulation instruction, which may include new advancements such as holographic images.”

Gary DePreta, Cisco’s senior vice president of U.S. public sector, stressed that the network positions Georgetown for a rapidly changing digital landscape.

“Our multi-year partnership with Georgetown University marks one of the largest Wi-Fi 7 deployments in higher education,” said DePreta. “‘Fast’ is the past— ‘instant’ is the future when it comes to higher education.”

That’s good news for learners and teachers alike.

“For students, faculty, and staff, this means seamless, high-speed connectivity,” DePreta added, “supporting everything from streaming lectures to groundbreaking research handling massive datasets with ease. With Wi-Fi 7 and the expanded 6 GHz spectrum, everyone on campus will benefit from faster speeds, lower latency, and more reliable connections.”

Behind Wi-Fi 7’s blistering ‘instant’ speeds, expansive bandwidth, and ultra-low latency is a complete network overhaul — essential as students up their usage of AI and leverage massive data sets.

“We’re bringing the latest Cisco networking technologies to campus,” DePreta continued, “modernizing Georgetown’s entire network with our advanced enterprise switching and wireless solutions.”

Advanced connectivity and security; simplified network management

Of course, advanced doesn’t have to mean difficult to manage. Cisco’s switching and wireless solutions provide automation and advanced analytics for real-time insights into network performance and usage patterns. And all those insights and updates are available on intuitive dashboards.

“Cisco has AI natively built into the network management tools to simplify operations and ensure network health,” Little explained. “This optimizes performance and helps to prevent congestion and ensure consistent performance in high-density areas — like a university campus or a sports stadium. This produces a faster network, with lower latency, and results in more reliable access to academic applications.”

Cisco’s unified infrastructure and access layer management — along with its overall platform strategy — enable a much-streamlined experience for IT teams. This includes security, of course, a critical concern for any organization. So, Georgetown is deploying a multi-layered security framework, powered by Cisco’s comprehensive portfolio, that includes multi-factor authentication, end-to-end network visibility, and advanced security operations analytics to protect the campus community and its digital assets.

It’s all about meeting the demands of a sprawling campus that is a constant hive of digital activity — while automating processes to lessen the complexity.

“We have over 6,000 wireless access points and 50,000 active devices,” Little said, “and the wireless access points dynamically adjust their channel, power, and bandwidth configurations to accommodate traffic. They speak to one another to coordinate traffic load. When users move around, the wireless access points automatically change their configurations to accommodate that traffic. Each building has its own independent network and coordinates handoffs of client traffic between buildings when traffic demand changes and when people move from one building or floor to another.

Meeting next-gen challenges

Wi-Fi 7 is proving to be a robust, flexible solution to numerous high-density wireless applications. Earlier this month, Levi’s®Stadium in Santa Clara, California, deployed a robust Cisco Wi-Fi 7 network and a full Cisco network refresh to keep 70,000 rabid fans connected and secure during Super Bowl LX, even with massive uploads of individual photos and videos. And Cisco recently partnered with Monumental Sports and Entertainment (MSE), which owns Capital One Arena, the home arena for Georgetown University’s men’s basketball team. The venue is investing more than $800m on its transformation, which in addition to Cisco Wi-Fi 7 includes Cisco Spaces, Cisco IP Fabric for Media, Cisco ThousandEyes, Wipro VisionEDGE, and more.

As for Georgetown’s transformation, it represents the latest step in a great partnership, as well as an example of how Cisco — and Wi-Fi 7 — can continue to empower education, regardless of what future challenges arise.

“This partnership is about empowering the Georgetown community with innovative digital experiences and building a strong foundation for the future of education,” DePreta concluded. “We look forward to supporting Georgetown as it continues to redefine campus connectivity, prepare students for the future, and lead with the latest educational experiences.”