IU finishes installation of campus wireless connection

IU may have received national recognition for being one of the top 10 "most wired" universities by Yahoo! Internet Life, but it's not the wires getting the attention these days.\nStudents can now access the IU network from nearly every campus building, thanks to the University Information Technology Services' completion of an initiative to provide the IU-Bloomington and IUPUI campuses with comprehensive wireless, or "Wi-Fi," coverage.\n"This is important because it expands the usefulness of [laptops and PDAs]," said Brian Voss, associate vice president for telecommunications in IU's Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO. "Without a network connection, these devices are basically $1,000 spiral notebooks."\nLaptops and PDAs equipped with 802.11B wireless cards, the industry standard grade, can now access e-mail, Regweb, Insite and nearly all other network services.\n"Just being able to pretty much be anywhere and be able to get hooked into the Internet is huge," junior John Palmer said. "As a computer science major, most of my classes are online, and being able to get to all the different resources you have anywhere on campus makes it really flexible."\nIn addition to convenience, Wi-Fi provides a more cost-effective networking solution. One access point can cover a 300-foot diameter, whereas wired networks require hundreds of feet of expensive cable installation, said Kirt Guinn, who led the Wi-Fi effort for UITS. Drawbacks include slower connection speeds and decreased stability.\nUITS installed some 800 wireless access points during the past year to expand coverage to classrooms, academic offices, conference rooms and faculty and staff areas. And with the help of Vivato brand antennas, users will soon be able to access network functions from open outdoor areas, Guinn said. \n"I think it's attractive to incoming students," Guinn said. "If you're interested in that technology and you're evaluating schools that you'd like to go to, it's important for the schools to have this kind of technology."\nA Vivato antenna atop Memorial Stadium currently broadcasts signals eastward as far as Eigenmann Hall. Ballantine, Eigenmann, Harper and the Wright Education Building are next in line to receive the antennas, Guinn said\n"What you're going to find is that it's going to be more and more pervasive," Guinn said. "As time goes on, you're going to have it in the public library downtown, it's going to be in malls, you're going to go to football games and they're going to use scanners on your ticket instead tearing off the stub."\nIU's partnership with Kiva Networking in Bloomington expands coverage even further. Students, faculty and staff can log on through Kiva Anywhere! and surf the web from locations in Bloomington and Monroe County.\nWith such widespread access, security is a concern. However, Voss said ample security is available through IU's Virtual Private Network system, the same system that protects remote access for high-speed at-home users.\nWith faster and more comprehensive wireless coverage on the way, Guinn said the future of Wi-Fi looks bright.\n"If you don't use wireless now," Guinn said, "Once you do, there's no going back."\n-- Contact staff writer Mike McElroy at mmcelroy@indiana.edu