Wi-Fi at the Crossroads: What Higher Ed Has Learned — and What's Coming Next
Tuesday, September 29 · 11:10–12:10 PM America/Denver · Main Room
Enterprise Wi-Fi is in the middle of its biggest shift in a decade, and higher education campuses are the proving ground. This session splits the hour in two: the first half is grounded in the present, with real lessons learned deploying Wi-Fi 7 and 6 GHz across residence halls, classrooms, and athletics venues — the density, spectrum, and WPA2-to-WPA3 transition realities CIOs and CTOs are already navigating today, plus the architectural shift underway in where management, control, and data planes actually live within the WLAN. The second half looks ahead to Wi-Fi 8 and the campus network's evolution into a distributed AI edge compute platform — not as a deep technical dive, but as a practical look at what to expect and what's on the horizon.
David Coleman
Extreme Networks
David D. Coleman is the Director of Wireless Networking in the Office of the CTO at Extreme Networks, where he provides technical leadership and strategic guidance for enterprise Wi-Fi and connected infrastructure. A technology evangelist, sought-after public speaker, and prolific author, David travels globally for customer and channel partner engagements, and industry conferences, and advanced technical briefings. He has instructed IT professionals worldwide in Wi-Fi design, security, administration, and troubleshooting, and is widely recognized as an authority on 802.11 technology. David has authored multiple books, blogs, and white papers on wireless networking, translating standards and RF complexity into practical, real-world guidance. Prior to joining Extreme Networks, David specialized in corporate and government Wi-Fi training and consulting, supporting large-scale deployments for private enterprises as well as the U.S. military and federal and state government agencies. He is the 2020 recipient of the Wi-Fi Lifetime Achievement Award, holds CWNE #4, and is co-author of Sybex Publishing’s Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA) Study Guide – 6th Edition. When not traveling, David resides in the mountains of Blue Ridge, Georgia. Follow David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mistermultipath/