Hanging Access Points at 3 a.m.: How One Campus Cut Wi-Fi Tickets by 70% and Prepped for Wi-Fi 7

Campus Wi-Fi is no longer a utility—it's the front door to learning, residence life, and student well-being. Over the past five years, one midsized university watched wireless throughput more than double as students arrived with more devices, while growth in bandwidth and latency-sensitive applications such as video calls put even more demands on the network. To address these pressures and prepare for the rapid growth of 6 GHz clients on campus, Butler University implemented a phased Wi-Fi 6E/7 modernization strategy designed to be largely invisible to end users while significantly improving performance and reliability. Alongside the upgrade, the team rethought BYOD onboarding, and is replacing traditional wireless authentication solutions that had proven cumbersome and difficult to scale with a simpler model built on per-student passphrase. This session tells the story of Butler University's multiyear wireless reinvention: a phased Wi-Fi 6E/7 modernization designed to be nearly invisible to end users, paired with a rethink of how students and their devices get on the network. The result: an estimated 70% reduction in Wi-Fi support cases, a dramatically better residential experience, and a network so quiet that facilities can hang access points in a new building at 3 a.m. and have it serve clients by 8 a.m. A co-presenter from the wireless industry will provide broader perspective on emerging trends and how peer institutions approach similar challenges.