Disadvantages of Installing a School Network

Expensive to Install.

Large campus networks can carry hefty price tags. Cabling, network cards, routers, bridges, firewalls, wireless access points, and software can get expensive, and the installation would certainly require the services of technicians. But, with the ease of setup of home networks, a simple network with internet access can be setup for a small campus in an afternoon.

Requires Administrative Time.

Proper maintenance of a network requires considerable time and expertise. Many schools have installed a network, only to find that they did not budget for the necessary administrative support.

Servers Fail.

Although a network server is no more susceptible to failure than any other computer, when the files server "goes down" the entire network may come to a halt. Good network design practices say that critical network services (provided by servers) should be redundant on the network whenever possible.

Cables May Break.

The Topology chapter presents information about the various configurations of cables. Some of the configurations are designed to minimize the inconvenience of a broken cable; with other configurations, one broken cable can stop the entire network.

Security and compliance.

Network security is expensive. It is also very important. A school network would possibly be subject to more stringent security requirements than a similarly-sized corporate network, because of its likelihood of storing personal and confidential information of network users, the danger of which can be compounded if any network users are minors. A great deal of attention must be paid to network services to ensure all network content is appropriate for the network community it serves.