Case Study: The University of North Carolina at Pembroke achieves reliable campus‑wide Wi‑Fi and reduced IT maintenance with Cisco Meraki

Improving the Wi-Fi experience for university students

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, serving about 7,200 students across 16 academic buildings and seven residence halls, faced rising student density, bandwidth demand, and a lean five‑person network team that needed a future‑proof wireless solution. To address these challenges they evaluated and adopted the cloud‑managed solution from Cisco Meraki to simplify deployments and improve the student and faculty experience.

Cisco Meraki was piloted against the legacy controller system and then rolled out campus‑wide—deploying 700+ Meraki MR access points (MR30H, MR53, MR84) and integrating with Cisco ISE for security. The Meraki dashboard increased visibility and troubleshooting speed, delivered seamless roaming and reliable coverage, dramatically reduced help‑desk tickets and complaints, and freed IT staff to focus on higher‑impact projects; UNCP has already moved to upgrade backbone links to 10 Gb to keep up with demand.

The University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Kevin Pait

Interim CIO and Associate Vice Chancellor