Case Study: Silver Valley Unified School District achieves a future‑proof, high‑bandwidth network and simplified district‑wide management with RUCKUS Networks

Silver Valley Unified School District - Customer Case Study

Silver Valley Unified School District, serving about 2,200 K–12 students across 3,300 square miles, faced a patchwork, decade‑old network (Windows NT4, Novell, mixed switches, early Wi‑Fi) that cost up to $60,000/year to support. Limited WAN bandwidth (15–20 Mbps per school), poor wireless coverage and aging cabling caused dropped connections and prevented teachers and students from using modern online coursework and streaming resources.

Working with partners Teknique and TrulyCreative, the district deployed Ruckus ICX switches (ICX 7750 core and ICX 7450 edge), replaced cabling, and upgraded links—Internet from 100 Mbps to 1 Gbps and microwave WAN backhaul to 500 Mbps—putting each site on a 10 GbE LAN with 1 Gbps to desktops. The fast, turnkey rollout (120+ switches installed in under a week) delivered reliable wireless and streaming, simplified VLAN‑based management, strong vendor support, and SDN/OpenFlow readiness for future growth.

Silver Valley Unified School District

Robert Saffel

Director of Technology Services