Case Study: Virginia Commonwealth University achieves high‑performance campus Wi‑Fi and simplified network management with Cisco Meraki

Enhancing the student experience through high-performance Wi-Fi and advanced analytics

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), the state's largest four‑year public university with more than 150 buildings across two campuses, faced growing demands for reliable, high‑density wireless — especially for roughly 9,000 students living in dorms. The existing campus Wi‑Fi relied on thousands of on‑site devices (over 4,000 access points plus many routers and controllers) and produced backend maintenance issues that accounted for about 60% of trouble‑ticket time, limiting the network team’s ability to support users. VCU selected the Cisco Meraki cloud‑based wireless solution to address these challenges.

Cisco Meraki deployed cloud‑managed Meraki access points, Meraki Health analytics and dashboard, MV smart cameras, and integrated SplashAccess for easy student device enrollment, enabling VCU to manage all ~4,000 APs centrally. The implementation finished in six months (twice as fast as planned), troubleshooting and trouble tickets declined notably, engineers’ maintenance burden fell dramatically, and VCU projects significant ten‑year cost savings; Meraki analytics also helped monitor campus movement during the pandemic, contributing to fewer outbreaks versus peer schools.

Virginia Commonwealth University