Aruba thinks it may be part of the creation of the world's largest wireless local area network (WLAN): I'm not quite sure if they're right, but they make a good case. The network will require between 3,000 and 10,000 APs. On the short end of that range, there are plenty of campus-wide (academic and business) networks in that scale. But on the higher end, I'm unaware of anything that large. Even city-wide networks like Philadelphia should employ only the mid-thousands of nodes, although they're not providing the same kind of high-availabily, in-building overage that Ohio State will have.
The stats: 50,000 students, 27,000 faculty/staff, 25 million square feet across 400 buildings, and 1,700 acres. In three weeks, they've lit up 1,700 APs in 28 buildings. I assumed that was the time to get the network running, not both physically stringing APs and logically activating the network--but I'm apparently wrong. Read the comment below. [link via Engadget]
The 3 weeks was from zero APs, zero gear to deployed with students and staff connecting. It included installation. Believe or not. Everyone was amazed that it could be done. Remember that with Aruba there are no changes to the wired network required - no new VLANs at the edge, no IOS upgrades, no new supervisor cards, etc.
If you're talking about Rutgers New Brunswick, then yes, it does have 4 sub-campuses in the New Brunswick Area. However, the largest distance (end to end) is at maximum only 10 miles.
Now if you're talking about Rutgers generally, yes, it does have 3 campuses - New Brunswick, Newark and Camden. These three are scattered evenly throughout New Jersey, so obviously I don't expect them to blanket the entire state in WiFi. I don't really care for the Newark/Camden (ghetto) campuses. I'd expect Rutger's flagship campus (new brunswick) with it's hi-tech computer equipment to have 100% wifi coverage. Honestly, how difficult is it? Give me a few 100 AP, I'll set it up. They're just a lazy state school. That's all.