West Campus adds wireless network

The new wireless network system the Office of Information and Instructional Technology implemented Fall semester is still making advances and is expected to be in use at the West Campus apartments as soon as possible.

“In monitoring the traffic loads, we see that there are a lot of folks using the network. I’ve not heard any complaints from students about speed or internet access,” said Edward Boyd, director of administrative computing and networking services.

“I have found that using the wireless network is just really convenient for me,” said Lindsay Garret, a senior special education cohort student. I just like being able to use my laptop wherever I am on campus.”

Some students like the new addition of the wireless network because of the speed and its ease of use.

“I don’t have to wait for a computer in the labs anymore,” said Pamela Yero, a senior special education cohort student. “When I need to get online I can just do it; I don’t have to look for a free computer.”

With the addition of the west campus student apartments there are many new networking options opening up for OIIT, and they have a plan in store to get the wireless service to the new residents.

“Wireless networking of client computers to the GC&SU local area network is not yet available at the West Complex area,” said Boyd.
“There turned out to be no money left in the housing project budget to fund the purchase of additional wireless hardware to deploy at the West Campus facility. Our plan is to recover the wireless hardware (access points, cables, antennas) from the old dorms as they are vacated and re-deploy into the new facilities. This would have happened during the December break, but there was a delay in getting the Centennial area housing ready to move in. When the move takes place, projected for the end of January, we will move quickly to recover and re-deploy the
equipment.”

Because of some construction delays on the new facilities, OIIT had to get crafty on how they were going to connect the new residents with the main campus network system.

“Presently the West Campus complex is connected to the main campus ‘point to point’ radio transmission. There have been some delays in getting proper right of way permits to hang new fiber on light poles and to cross the railroads property,” said Boyd. “These delays prohibited the developer from making the move-in deadline for having a fiber pathway from the main campus to West Campus. This wireless solution is a good temporary fix, but lacks in providing the same level of transport speed and flexibility of traffic management that the fiber will provide when in place.”

There were a few worries about the reliability of the signal, but so far things have been smooth.

“Our service to West Campus has been running without problems since the initial start up configuration tuning was completed,” said Boyd. “We have experienced a few times where the electrical load in the network closets for one of the buildings kicked a breaker. The developer was contacted and the circuit breakers are being changed out and replaced with higher amp breakers.”

The West Complex facility has its own routed signal, so there should be faster processing speeds expected.

“One advantage the new facilities has is the resident hall Internet traffic has now been split out from the main campus network traffic and has its own routed pathway into the Internet provider. This should result in a smaller traffic bottleneck as the signals pass onto the Internet and provide the users with better response time when accessing off campus sites.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Jan 17 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry