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NewsletterAugust 5, 2024·5 min read

Lessons from Deploying 364 Schools in 90 Days

Inside the Jamaica education network deployment: how a 5-person MSP managed a national-scale project with multi-vendor hardware.

WiBUZ Team
Customer Success

When MsTECH won Jamaica's national education network contract, everyone said it couldn't be done. 364 schools. 3,150 access points. 90 days. Six different hardware vendors.

Here's how they did it—and what other MSPs can learn from their approach.

The Challenge

Jamaica's Ministry of Education needed Wi-Fi in every school. Fast. The existing infrastructure was a patchwork of different vendors, installed over years by different contractors.

The traditional approach would be: rip everything out, install one vendor, manage from their cloud. But that meant:

  • Wasting functional equipment
  • 12-18 month deployment timeline
  • Massive capital expense
  • Continued vendor lock-in
  • MsTECH proposed something different: keep the existing hardware, add OpenWiFi where needed, manage everything from one platform.

    The Solution

    Using wibipOS as the control plane, MsTECH built a multi-vendor management layer that handled:

  • **Ruckus APs** in urban schools
  • **Edgecore OpenWiFi** APs in new installations
  • **Legacy equipment** from previous deployments
  • **Mixed firmware** across the network
  • One dashboard. One support team. One operational model.

    The Results

  • **364 schools** deployed in 90 days
  • **3,150 APs** under management
  • **6 hardware vendors** unified
  • **Zero rip-and-replace** required
  • The deployment is now scaling to 1,000 schools across the entire education system.

    Key Lessons

    1. Multi-Vendor Is a Feature, Not a Bug

    MsTECH didn't fight the hardware diversity—they embraced it. This let them move faster and spend less.

    2. Operational Efficiency Beats Technical Perfection

    A 90% solution deployed in 90 days beats a 100% solution deployed in 18 months.

    3. Platform Choice Matters

    The right management platform turns multi-vendor chaos into operational advantage.

    4. Small Teams Can Do Big Things

    MsTECH is a 5-person company. The platform did the heavy lifting.

    What's Next

    The Jamaica deployment proves that national-scale, multi-vendor Wi-Fi networks are possible. The question for other MSPs: what's stopping you?

    Ready to See wibipOS in Action?

    Start your 30-day sandbox and experience multi-vendor management firsthand.