How to go wireless via Linux

Going wireless using open-source technology is a big challenge in itself, but if you add in a user base of nearly 600,000 spread over nearly 2,000 site locations, it becomes just downright daunting. That's exactly what Australia's Victoria Department of Education (DET) faced when it decided to bring wireless on campus. Costing about $5 million, the organization made it all happen in just under six months. But that doesn't mean there were more than a few challenges. First DET had to find the right technology partner to work with their programmers who had their own kernel system in place. Then it had to convince it's chosen partner, Cisco, to change factory default settings on the new networking pieces. Then it was time to review, consider and review again the security map and code access issues.

Since the new network has been in place, DET estimates that it has saved at least 20 percent against a cable network and 50 percent due to open-source software. And all the open source efforts actually took place in a Windows heavy environment, a fact that wasn't lost on the major tech titan, says the DET tech leader.

To learn more about how DET tackled and solved these issues:
- read all about it in this wireless.itworld.com article

PLUS: How the University of Massachusetts went wireless and is reaping big rewards. Article