160 Access Points, Under a Week, Zero Downtime
Wireless networking in Michiana isn’t just about installing access points—it’s about designing networks that continue to perform as organizations grow. Recently, a large Michiana campus with roughly 2,000 users wasn’t suffering from too many people—it was suffering from how those people worked. Cloud applications, video conferencing, streaming media, and multiple devices per person had quietly outgrown a wireless network designed years earlier.
Replacing everything would have solved the problem. It also would have cost several times more. The challenge was delivering modern wireless performance using an existing Cisco switching infrastructure that still had years of useful life.
The Challenge
The core network was running on Cisco switching gear from 2014 and 2015, paired with a mix of access points from 2017 and 2019. Old enough to be limited. Not old enough to justify replacing outright. Our job was to extract as much performance as possible from the existing infrastructure without replacing it.
That meant working within real constraints — PoE budgets on aging switches, firmware quirks, and getting equipment from two different manufacturers to play nicely together.
What We Did
We deployed roughly 160 new access points across the campus in under a week — a timeline that required tight coordination so every building stayed online throughout.
To ensure reliable operation with the newer access points, we manually tuned PoE settings on every switch port rather than relying on automatic negotiation. It was painstaking work, but it provided consistent power delivery across all 160 access points while staying within the limitations of the existing switching hardware.
Underneath all of it, we rebuilt the VLAN structure and routing to properly segment and prioritize traffic across the expanded wireless footprint — the unglamorous work that determines whether 160 access points act like one coordinated network or 160 separate headaches.
We also pulled the retired equipment out and handled disposal responsibly, so the client wasn’t left with a pile of e-waste as a parting gift from the upgrade.
The Result
- 2–3x improvement in throughput, giving the network real headroom for how people actually use bandwidth today
- Significantly improved reliability, ending the slow, unpredictable connections users had been living with
- No infrastructure rebuild required — the existing Cisco backbone stayed in place
- Under one week from start to finish, with minimal disruption to daily operations
Why It Matters
Most organizations assume that fixing bad Wi-Fi means a full network overhaul — new switches, new cabling, a six-figure project. Often, it doesn’t. The right diagnosis, the right hardware choices, and careful configuration work can get you most of the way there for a fraction of the cost and disruption.
Sometimes the right answer is replacing everything. More often, it’s understanding exactly where the bottleneck is and solving that problem without replacing hardware that still has years of useful life.
If you’re not sure what you currently have set up, contact us for more information. We serve South Bend, Bremen, Elkhart, Granger, Mishawaka, Plymouth & the entire Michiana region.