Troubleshooting Wired & Wireless Networks Within Higher Education and Healthcare Environments By Steve Cowles
Modern network infrastructure installations in higher education and healthcare environments can face unique challenges that demand specialized troubleshooting approaches. From sprawling university campuses equipped with cutting-edge research facilities to healthcare institutions reliant on uninterrupted connectivity for patient care, the complexity and criticality of these networks continue to grow. This article examines common issues and offers practical solutions for both wired and wireless networks HIGHER EDUCATION ENVIRONMENTS Network infrastructures within higher education can be far more complex compared to business verticals. Often, a mixture of traditional enterprise-grade technologies is combined with innovative infrastructure components that expand educational possibilities within science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. Added to this, school grounds commonly span multiple buildings and host occupants in housing or dorms around the clock. Thus, the use of public safety internet of things (IoT) technologies is often higher than what might be deployed within even the most sophisticated smart buildings. In this article, there are five testing, troubleshooting, and maintenance situations in particular that IT staff commonly encounter working in higher education campuses.
in these demanding environments. It explores the evolving landscape of technologies—such as high power over Ethernet (PoE), hybrid powered optical fiber, multi-gigabit Ethernet—and the increasing reliance on modular, portable tools for effective diagnostics. By examining real-world scenarios and offering actionable insights, IT professionals can be empowered to maintain robust, high-performance networks that support the essential functions of the education and healthcare sectors. Long Haul Optical Fiber Between Buildings At medium-to-large-sized universities that span multiple buildings or city blocks, optical fiber is run between facilities either above or below ground to create a single unified LAN. Over time, this optical fiber can experience a multitude of issues that can cause network degradation or failures. Examples include fiber cuts, animal infestations, vandalism, and dust or debris that can get into the connectors. The ability to test both singlemode and multimode optical fiber and a wide range of connector types with a single tool can be useful for troubleshooting these sprawling optical fiber runs. For example, a visual fault locator (VFL) test can be performed on a questionable run to help administrators quickly identify any breaks in the optical fiber, and an optical fiber scope can identify dirt that could be causing performance
FIGURE 1 : Examples of network cable test tools showing key metrics like cable length, delay, resistance, and signal margin, and a microscopic view of the end-face of an optical fiber with dust contamination. Source: AEM
degradation. Other useful measurements can include optical fiber loss, run length, and live wiremap, as well as the ability to measure DC resistance on the copper pair of a hybrid-powered optical fiber that provides data and power to remote devices. High Tech Data Centers with Multi-gig Ethernet and Optical Fiber Channel Advanced research occurs almost every day on most higher education campuses. High-end computing hardware is commonplace within school data centers. These often require multi-gigabit copper or optical fiber connections in addition to high-speed storage area networks (SANs) that use optical fiber channel technologies for improved data transport performance. For higher education data centers, a modular test
tool can run verification and certification tests for both copper and optical fiber. Additionally, the ability to verify the maximum speed limitations for optical fiber channel derived data is especially useful as optical fiber channel technology standards now reach speeds up to 128 Gbps. IoT Deployments Using the Latest in Cabling Technologies Modern technologies on university campuses are not only relegated to the data center. Commercial, enterprise, and custom-built IoT devices are being deployed on campuses both indoors and out. In some cases, these IoT devices require the latest in cabling technologies for both power delivery and network connectivity. To ensure optimal performance, an IoT deployment
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