Case Study: McCarran International Airport achieves secure, scalable airport-wide Wi-Fi with HPE Aruba Networking

Public And Private Wi-Fi Takes Flight at McCarran Airport

McCarran International Airport, the seventh-busiest airport in North America serving over 41 million passengers annually, needed a robust wireless solution to deliver free public Wi‑Fi, secure private networks for carriers and vendors, and support business‑critical operational applications (wheelchair dispatch, flight displays, kiosks). The airport’s priorities were centralized security and management, scalable high performance across a vast terminal environment, simple tenant partitioning, and cost‑effective operations.

McCarran implemented an Aruba controller‑managed WLAN—Aruba Mobility Controllers, single/dual‑radio access points and ArubaOS with integrated firewall and wireless intrusion protection—plus Adaptive Radio Management to optimize RF automatically. The deployment centralized management and troubleshooting, enabled secure virtual networks for carriers, enforced contextual policies by user/device/location, reduced total cost of ownership, and delivered reliable, airport‑wide Wi‑Fi that supports millions of travelers and critical airport services.

McCarran International Airport

Samuel Ingalls

Assistant Director of Aviation, Information Systems