In July 2021, ANU Council approved the University's Digital Master Plan (DMP) which recommended a substantial investment towards transforming our digital presence.

A component of the Digital Master Plan is an initiative called "Converged Network and Communications" whose purpose is to improve connectivity across ANU campus and reduce blackspots. The benefits should be realised by all staff, students, and executives.

Wireless Networks are becoming more prevalent in modern society and are heavily relied upon in terms of both work and social contexts and therefore should sit upon a reliable Wireless Infrastructure.

As the University has undertaken its wireless journey since 2008, several issues have become apparent with the Wireless Infrastructure and require a Project to address these issues.

The first issue being the number of black spots / dropouts throughout the residencies, campuses, and remote locations (which may be due to the known amount of Wireless Access Points (WAPs) being down) which causes staff, students, and executives' problems when browsing the internet.

The second being Wireless Access Points heading towards End-Of-Life (EOL) in November 2023.

The third being Wireless Access Points becoming overloaded with users (Capacity Planning) causing longer buffer times, slower connections, and dropouts.

And the fourth is the University adopting new technologies as they become more reliable as there is no strategic plan to address what technologies are upcoming in the future of Wireless Networking nor how the University plans to adopt these technologies.

Should these issues continue unaddressed, the financial implications could be dramatic as the cost of productivity will sky-rocket due to failing Wireless Networks. Furthermore, the reputational costs to the Information Technology Services (ITS) Branch would be severely damaged.

The purpose of the Wi-Fi Strategy and Upgrade Project is to address these technical shortfalls before they hinder the students, staff, and executives utilising the Wireless Network as well as improve upon the current infrastructure.