Florida Gulf Coast University Transforms Wireless Connectivity Across Campus with Extreme Fabric, NAC, and Cloud Management

Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) serves about 17,000 students in Southwest Florida, including roughly 5,000 who live on campus. With a large residential population and broad academic offerings, the university depends on reliable connectivity to support learning, campus life, and daily operations.

For Chris Carelli, Acting Associate Director at FGCU, networking touches nearly every part of campus IT. His team supports firewalls, load balancing, switching, routing, wireless access, and network access control across academic buildings, the library, residence halls, gaming devices, and event venues.

Before expanding with Extreme, FGCU faced familiar higher ed challenges: aging infrastructure, disconnected tools, and the need to support a diverse campus community. The university relied on Cisco wireless with an on-premises controller, but the environment fell short, especially in support and long-term flexibility.

Carelli had deep experience in large Cisco environments and knew the trade-offs firsthand. FGCU needed a partner that could help the team move faster, reduce complexity, and deliver dependable support when it mattered most. As he put it, “Cisco support is just not good. With Extreme, we have a true partner.”

FGCU chose Extreme Networks to modernize its wired and wireless environment with a simpler, more unified approach. A core part of that shift is Extreme Fabric, helping the university move beyond legacy complexity to a network that is easier to deploy, manage, and scale.

FGCU also moved to Extreme Platform ONE^TM , giving the IT team more flexibility and visibility across campus. The unified platform helps Chris and the team more decisively manage and respond to issues when they do happen to arise, which has helped reduce troubleshooting and ticket resolution times.

“For my team, one pane of glass makes it easy to see any device, troubleshoot issues, and resolve problems quickly,” said Carelli. "Extreme Platform ONE allows us to integrate all the things we need… all on one platform."

FGCU also uses Extreme network access control (NAC) to segment users and devices more intelligently. In student housing, gaming consoles can be identified and placed in the right environment. In academic spaces, the university can apply tighter policies while maintaining visibility and control.

The university is also exploring added security use cases, including zero trust network access. For Carelli, the value is not just in individual tools, but in how easily Extreme brings together switching, wireless, access control, and cloud management into one operating model.

For FGCU, the technology mattered, but the partnership mattered just as much. Carelli described both Extreme Networks and Personal Computer Systems (PCS) as an extension of his team, not a traditional vendor relationship. If FGCU encounters a problem, Extreme and PCS treat it as their problem too.

That commitment mattered the most during a time-sensitive project at the on campus Alico Arena. Although the basketball arena was not originally slated for immediate upgrades, FGCU chose to move quickly. PCS coordinated the purchase of new wired and wireless devices across warehouses, while Extreme and FGCU worked together to configure and deploy the solution architecture on a tight timeline. The network rollout supported basketball games and other major campus events, including the university’s largest commencement to date, without issue.

“It’s a partnership. The support from Extreme and PCS is the best I’ve had in my career. It never feels like a vendor relationship. It feels like they’re invested in our success.”

With Extreme, FGCU is building a network that better serves both students and IT staff. In high-density spaces such as the library, the university is focused on delivering the wireless performance students need for studying, collaboration, coursework, and streaming. In residential environments, the network supports reliable, seamless connectivity across personal devices and gaming systems.

For the IT team, the operational benefits of Extreme Fabric and Extreme Platform ONE are equally important. Greater visibility across devices and users makes it easier to troubleshoot and resolve issues faster. Carelli said the university has seen fewer support tickets than the previous year, a sign the new environment is reducing friction for both end users and administrators.

Just as importantly, Extreme has helped FGCU simplify the path to a more unified future. As more capabilities come together across wired, wireless, and security, the university can move toward a single operational view that reduces complexity and supports better decisions across the network.

Considering a similar move from Cisco? Explore how Extreme delivers the performance, support, and flexibility today’s organizations need: Extreme Networks vs. Cisco Catalyst