The Charleston Southern University (CSU) was given the task of bringing live broadcasts (video and audio) of NCAA women's events for the NCAA Division I Big South Conference, occurring at the campus's soccer and softball fields in part to further enhance the sporting program but to also satisfy Title IX requirements. However, CSU's current wireless network was not capable of supporting video broadcasts. Laying a fiber backhaul across the campus would not have been cost effective either.

Enabling a live video feed was beyond the campus' current capabilities, because it could not provide the range or the bandwidth needed to support video streaming. Trenching a fiber backhaul across the newly installed fields would cost approximately $38,000 and be disruptive to athletes'during deployment.

The best solution was the Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays which provided double the range and more than four times the bandwidth of the existing Wi-Fi Access Points throughout the campus. The Xirrus Wi-Fi network was used to wirelessly connect the Learning Center to the soccer and softball fields.

From there, video cameras provided live video and audio feeds of the athletic events making CSU's the first deployment of wireless technology to satisfy live video and audio streaming for an NCAA Big South Conference sports venue. Xirrus' solution delivered the required range and bandwidth while costing 70 percent less than a wired alternative. In total, Charleston Southern University saved $16,000 alone, by avoiding fiber backhaul. Wi-Fi Array handles over 1,000 simultaneous users provisioning nearly a Gigabit of Wi-Fi bandwidth.

Learn more about Xirrus' Wi-Fi Array.