[email protected] On Jan 9, 2015 4:18 PM, "Hector J Rios" <[email protected]> wrote:
> For the longest time we have done all of our design and implementation > work in-house. Last year we decided to hire consultants for some of our > high-density deployments because we were really short-staffed. One group of > consultants was horrible, the other did well and provided good results. > > Working with anybody that is not familiar with your network and your > campus is going to require some babysitting and this can be better spent > with your own people. I do have to agree that all of our needs are > different, and consultants can have their place and can provide value. If > you do decide to use a consultant, make super sure that you have a proper > Statement of Work that covers all expectations and details of what the end > result will be. This is crucial for a successful engagement. > > I personally would much rather spend my money on the right tools, and on > my staff, than to give that money to someone else. In the process, you > provide continuous training, you get a chance to have those intimate > details of areas you will be serving and the end product you will be > delivering. > > Regards, > > Hector Rios > Louisiana State University > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto: > [email protected]] On Behalf Of Jerry Bucklaew > Sent: Thursday, January 08, 2015 11:54 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] RFP question > > Colleagues, > > We are starting an initiative to upgrade our Wi-Fi infrastructure. Our > current infrastructure was built in-house incrementally over the past > several years. It is 802.n based and not as dense as we would like so we > are looking at moving to 802.11ac with a significant increase in AP/antenna > density to reduce the number of devices associating with each AP and > improve performance. > > We are currently working on a RFP for hardware and figured we would do > the engineering layout, installation and configuration in-house. We > had a review meeting with a consultant who indicated that most > Universities do not do the Wi-Fi engineering work in house and usually put > the design in the RFP. This has led us to question whether we are > following best practices for design engineering. We suspect that this may > also depend on the size of the institution and the network staff. > > While I’m sure that we could achieve a more optimal initial coverage plan > by hiring someone to do a more detailed analysis of building materials and > RF propagation characteristics, I’m wondering if the additional time and > expense derives a net benefit over doing the design in house. > > So we figured we’d post this to our peers and try to evaluate what the > rest of you have experienced, or are planning. We have developed a short > survey (9 questions) to assess the design approach and a couple other > parameters. It should only take about 5 minutes to fill out, and as always > the more participants, the better the results. > > > You can access this survey at http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/8727g57943 > > We would appreciate your participation in the survey. I will leave it up > for a week and then post the results back to the list for all to see. I > will segment them into large schools and small schools as I > suspect there might be a difference there. I can segment it different > ways if people want to see it. > > ********** > Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent > Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/. > ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
