As it looks to meet the increasingly high demands of nearly 3,000 students who wish to have consistent, 24/7 support to connect all devices they bring to their campus, Radford University is deploying a residential network across its 44 residential buildings.
Growing out of a late 19th-century effort to expand the state of Virginia’s public school system and prepare a sufficient number of teachers, the institution now known as Radford University was founded by the Virginia General Assembly in the spring of 1910.
Right now, Radford University is a public university of 7,917 students serving the Commonwealth of Virginia and the US in general through a range of academic, cultural, human service and research programmes.
In addition to academic offerings and engaging student experiences on the main campus, Radford University also offers a clinical-based educational experience for more than 1,000 students living and learning in Roanoke, Virginia as part of Radford University Carilion.
The connectivity infrastructure was delivered by Boldyn Networks in what is said to have been a record 25 days.
The upgrade reflects a clear institutional priority: students arrive with more devices and higher expectations than ever, and their halls of residence should feel as connected as home.
Rather than upgrading in phases, Radford chose to modernise the residential network all at once, covering 2,965 beds in all buildings, so no student’s experience depends on which building they live in. The university selected Boldyn Networks to design, build and operate the network through ResNet, its residential network services offering.
Commenting on the deployment, Ryan Bailey, director of IT Infrastructure at Radford University, said: “Our students expect a frictionless experience to plug into campus life the moment they arrive. We want to make the onboarding process easy, intuitive and quick with every device they own. Our partnership with Boldyn means students live that experience in every residence hall, and our IT team gets valuable time to focus on the projects that will define how we teach and work at Radford over the next decade.”
Boldyn claims its partnership also gives Radford something campus IT leaders rarely get: predictability. The deployment includes built-in hardware lifecycle management and a known cost to serve and support the residence halls over the next five years, alongside year-round support for students that keeps pace with growing network demand.
It also hands operational load and day-to-day management to Boldyn, allowing Radford’s IT organisation to concentrate on strategic initiatives including complex enterprise resource planning and learning management system transitions and the roll-out of artificial intelligence capabilities across the campus.
“Radford made a decision a lot of institutions are weighing right now, to invest in the residential experience of their students without stretching an already-stretched IT team,” said Matt Loecke, senior vice-president of higher education at Boldyn Networks US. “Our role is to take the day-to-day off their plate and deliver a network students and staff don’t have to think about, so the university can focus on the future innovation the network will enable.”
