Professional Design of an Enterprise Wi-Fi Network Architecture for Large Secondary Schools in Lagos State

Secondary schools in Lagos State are increasingly deploying Wi-Fi networks to support tablet-based digital learning programmes, but these deployments are frequently designed without enterprise network engineering principles, resulting in poor coverage, unstable performance, and security vulnerabilities. This study developed a professional enterprise Wi-Fi network architecture reference design for large secondary schools in Lagos State. A site survey-based network design methodology was applied using Ekahau Network Design software for a reference 40-classroom, 2,400-student secondary school building model representative of the Lagos State Model Colleges. The design specified a Cisco Meraki cloud-managed Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) deployment at 5 GHz (80 MHz channel width) with a 2.4 GHz fallback for legacy devices, targeting a minimum RSSI of minus 65 dBm and a minimum throughput of 25 Mbps per active user. Access point density was calculated at one AP per 30 concurrent users, totalling 80 APs across the school premises. A segmented SSID architecture separated student, teacher, and administrative traffic into different VLANs with differentiated QoS and content filtering policies. A centralised Cisco Catalyst 9200 core switch and Cisco ISR 4321 router managed uplink to a 500 Mbps internet connection shared via Squid proxy caching to reduce bandwidth consumption. Security controls included WPA3-Enterprise authentication, Cisco ISE for device 802.1X onboarding, and Cisco Umbrella DNS filtering. Cost estimates for the full deployment were 18.4 million naira. The study recommends Lagos State Ministry of Education adopt this reference design for all Lagos State Model College Wi-Fi deployments.