ALE infrastructure connects The Myriad housing communities

Dubai, UAE, September 1st, 2020: Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a leading provider of communications, networking and cloud solutions tailored to customers’ industries, today announced that The Myriad, a dedicated student housing property developer and operator, has selected ALE to provide converged wired-wireless LAN infrastructure for their modern living communities built for a primarily student population in Dubai and Muscat.

The Myriad Dubai, a wholly owned subsidiary of Strategic Housing Group, is a fully integrated, urban-styled student living community located in the heart of Dubai International Academic City, where over 26,000 students study at 30 universities. Comprising seven blocks with a capacity of 2250 residents, the project is spread over 68,000 square meters and located within walking distance of most universities in Dubai Academic City.

The Myriad Muscat offers accommodations exclusively for young women in the Sultanate of Oman. With a capacity of 2700 residents, the project is spread over 100,000 square meters and located near universities in Al Seeb, Muscat.

The Myriad embodies a world-class student lifestyle and offers a fresh living experience based on in-depth research and analysis of today’s local and global students’ expectations. With students spending more time on the internet for research, homework, assignment submissions, social media, video streaming and gaming, it was important for The Myriad to provide advanced and fast connectivity. Investing in advanced technology to elevate service levels also helps The Myriad stand out in the student housing space.

“At The Myriad, we recognize the importance of embracing new technologies to remain competitive. It was crucial to have a solid network foundation and ubiquitous Wi-Fi to offer the very best for our young residents. In addition to their proven technologies that met our needs, we appreciated ALE’s level of engagement throughout all phases of the project, working as a true partner,” explains Haseeb Malik, General Manager - Technologies, Strategic Housing Group.

The Myriad Dubai and The Myriad Muscat deployed a cloud-based converged wired-wireless LAN solution from Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, each comprised of over 70 LAN switches and 1900 wireless access points. In addition, The Myriad Dubai also implemented an ALE Unified Communications solution.

“We aligned with The Myriad’s expectations and provided a simplified, efficient and secure communications and network infrastructure intended to enhance the experience for students and young professionals. The company can also build on the highly scalable infrastructure to meet future needs,” said Rui Silva, Distribution Manager, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

ALE has provided The Myriad properties with solutions that are designed to meet the residents’ connectivity expectations at an affordable cost. The switches deployed at both locations, Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch® 6900 Stackable LAN Switches at the core and OmniSwitch 6560 Stackable LAN Switches at the edge, are top-of-the-line, secure and provide easy management. The Alcatel-Lucent OmniVista® 2500 Network Management System provides IT admins with cohesive management and network-wide visibility as well as a full set of tools for converged campus networks. The converged solution is completed with Alcatel-Lucent OmniAccess® Stellar AP1201, AP1201H and AP1251 WLAN Access Points, Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX® Enterprise Communication Server, and Alcatel-Lucent 8008 Deskphones Cloud Edition SIP.

Post implementation, the unified network offers reliable and secure access whenever and wherever needed, in student rooms or on the move with smart devices. Unique IoT containment technology allows secure, automatic connection of authorized devices, users and applications. The controller-less Wi-Fi architecture enables better performance, high availability and scalability across The Myriad’s premises, while reducing complexity and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO). In addition, the in-room access points provide four ethernet ports that reduce the amount of cabling required.

To further boost its connectivity and communications strategy, The Myriad has plans to deploy Alcatel-Lucent Rainbow™, the company’s UCaaS platform, in the near future. The cloud-based Rainbow solution will allow The Myriad to integrate real-time communications into its existing business applications and provide residents with a single platform for unified communications and collaboration.