Case Study: University of Virginia achieves reliable, self-healing wireless coverage across a forested research station with Cisco Meraki

How UVA solved a problem like providing reliable wireless in a dense forest

The University of Virginia’s Mountain Lake Biological Station needed reliable wireless across 29 residential buildings on a remote, tree‑canopied mountaintop that serves 60–80 researchers each summer. With only a single T1 backhaul, frequent fog, storms and no line‑of‑sight between buildings made traditional Wi‑Fi deployments ineffective, so the University turned to Cisco Meraki (Wireless LAN MR series) for a rugged outdoor solution.

Cisco Meraki deployed four MR58 outdoor triple‑radio APs and five indoor APs in a self‑healing mesh roughly 500 ft across, using panel and omnidirectional antennas and centralized management via the Meraki Dashboard. The new network now covers nearly all residences and some field plots, handled peak summer traffic of over 135 GB/month, reduced computer‑lab usage and onsite maintenance, and provides remote monitoring and automatic re‑routing during outages.

University of Virginia

Eric Nagy

Associate Director