Proxim Puts Wireless At The Head Of The Class

Wireless networking vendor Proxim is going back to school. In some ways, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based vendor has never really left.

Proxim has always been a proponent of outfitting educational facilities with wireless networks and is now seeing a wealth of opportunity to provide universities and schools from kindergarten through 12th grade with wireless networks.

Proxim also recently hired a full-time manager to oversee efforts by the company and its solution providers in the education vertical, said Lynn Lucas, vice president of marketing at Proxim.

"Wireless has been a popular product in schools for some time," Lucas said. "Now we estimate that the education market for wireless is growing about as much as the wireless market itself, which is 30 percent annually, if not more."

Jeanne Flatland, who joined Proxim in early October 2004 as education marketing manager, said her newly created role at the company is "to make sure we are providing the programs for both end-user customers and our channel partners to drive our solutions in the education market."Flatland has spent most of her career focusing on sales and marketing efforts in the education vertical at companies including Acer America, Farallon Communications and Edutech. She said "a good portion" of that time was spent working with educational institutions to build both wired and wireless networks.

As part of Proxim's expanded wireless networking efforts in the education sector, the company unveiled projects to provide campuswide access to two universities in the southern United States. Charleston Southern University and Benedict College, both in South Carolina, recently deployed Wi-Fi networks to give students, faculty and staff campuswide access based on Proxim Wi-Fi and broadband networking technology.

Flatland said part of the draw of wireless networks is that they are becoming deal-breakers for new college admissions.

"As students are graduating from high school and evaluating colleges, they are expecting every college they consider to have Wi-Fi access on campus," Flatland said.

While university campuswide Wi-Fi networks are getting a fair share of publicity, K-12 schools are not getting left behind in the education market wireless boom. Flatland admits that these schools "are a little further behind in their adoption of wireless networks," but said they are getting up to speed at a fast clip.According to a "Technology in Education" 2004 report by Market Data Retrieval, an education marketing research firm, the number of K-12 schools with wireless networks more than doubled from 2002 to 2004. In 2004, 37 percent of K-12 schools had wireless networks, up from about 15 percent in 2002.

Al Pfeltz, founder and vice president of Sun Wireless, a San Diego-based wireless integrator, said most of his business recently has been to build out wireless networks in K-12 schools, especially to connect schools in a district to the main district offices.

Pfeltz said using wireless high-speed access to connect buildings in different locations is becoming a more cost-effective way for school districts to connect via broadband access than is leasing lines from telecom carriers. For example, he said a school district he recently visited in Winter Haven, Calif., which is on the Arizona border, was spending more than $2,000 a month for a T1 line because of the complicated routing system of the IP traffic.

"They wanted a T1 line from Winter Haven to El Centro, Calif., which is 45 miles [away]," Pfeltz said. "Well, that line goes from Winter Haven, to Yuma, Ariz., to Phoenix, to L.A., to San Diego and then to El Centro. That's the kind of thing school districts are faced with."

Pfeltz also said that K-12 schools are aggressively taking advantage of government funding available to build networks that will provide wide-scale Internet access to the institutions, another factor contributing to wireless network growth.In addition to its strengthened education focus, Proxim has also expanded its attention on wireless usage in the municipal network and public safety markets with new products and management hires.