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Students Seek Widespread Internet Access
Russ Jones writes "As a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, we have been struggling with finding ways to provide internet access to our growing off-campus students - currently, students have few to no options other than traditional, expensive, commercial providers. After feeling out large contracts through the University with major providers, it has become clear that they do not want to play ball with a public institution. Regardless, as a student I am still very interested in finding a solution to at least some of the woes. Students at Carolina are required to purchase laptops, many of which are wireless enabled. The University has put a lot of funding into wireless initiatives (but has only looked into using short-distance access points). Are there any long distance alternatives, that could possibly stretch a mile or more in radius? Any ideas on possible alternatives?"
...are faced with the same problem.
In fact, I know a group of upcoming juniors who decided to not live off campus because of the internet connection - it's god aweful and hideously expensive.
I'm not saying that the school should provide internet access to everyone, but really, some of the cases are ridiculous. Houses that have cabling running underneath and above them should be wired - if the house isn't rented to a Tufts student, charge a small fee for the service that you could work out with the provider of our lines, and if it is, provide free access.
The 'net is Huge at schools now. Everyone's on it, even if computer literacy is still very below "techie". I think the schools really ought to do more to bring the net to their surrounding communities, especially in the case of off campus living.
I installed this stuff back in '95, at the time it was still 2Mbps, but the range was 8km.
I don't see why recent access points couldn't do it.
from places like Time Warner Cable and students can get DSL from Verizon. Again, both in your area. Not good options but at least you have options. Where I am I can't get broadband... period. It sounds like you are complaining because you can't get broadband for free from your school.
Another poster insightfully gave you a Google link that you should use for your wireless dream. I suggest that since your school is dictating that students have laptops and certain kinds of laptops (and I assume the school doesn't pay for the laptops) why not dictate that students also have internet access and pay for it themselves? Really, we are talking about $14.95 for dial-up or $50 per month for broadband compared to a $1400 laptop they already have to buy.
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It depends on the situation. You're thinking of the University as a business, it's not. A University is the life of a student. Almost everything in that students life will happen close to the University.
Internet is important as it helps with the research, not only that but the University becomes a leader in the community for getting Internet access.
internet like monkeys'
my school has ethernet plugs in the dorms, and in most classrooms, and a lot of the 'public areas' (the student center, library etc), and both a local number and a toll free number (not well documented, but a google search finds it), with ppp support.
:)
I'm moving off campus for the next school year, and if I don't have funding for a cable modem or dsl, using the ppp (which i imagine only runs at 28.8 or so) will be fine. Any downloads I need to do can be done while on campus.
I'm going to do my best to find a home on campus for my 'desktop' with the debian mirror on it though, cause updating the mirror on a modem would be sad
I don't know how many students UNC has that would be using dialin lines, but they could start w/ a couple lines and grow as need be... could probably find some used modem racks fairly cheap, especially if 56k isn't important
Need a Catering Connection
You may not realize it but 350 a year is quite a bit. As it happens the students are already broke and want a cheap solution. We have more important things to worry without having to worry about money.
A better solution is to actually talk to other Universities on how they solved the problem.
internet like monkeys'
If this is going to be a student initiative a wireless/ethernet combination is a g00d idea. You could have several computers close to campus communicating with a wireless network. These computers would act as the 'middlemen' between the the school and external machines. You'd hook up to these machines through cables and would patch that into another set of machines and so on. Problem is that it's expensive and hard to setup.
Another solution is dialup...but that limits you in speed. If you school is willing to jump through loop holes (regulations is all), you can setup your own DSL: info here. The cost to setup can initially be covered by the school and you can rent the modems to the students. A small fee to use the line can also be included in the rental charge.
Here at the University of Waterloo (www.uwaterloo.ca) the Residences have account quotas so that people don't download movies 24/7. Investigation into how you could do that would also be worthwhile, or just keeping track of how much a specific computer downloads (just to give people warnings).
internet like monkeys'
If paying for it is really that bad, move in w/ a couple geeks and spread the cost of the connection between you.
;-).
Maybe he wants to have a *good time* at uni
"Stop making so much noise screwing, I'm concentrating on debugging the linux kernel up here!"
Here in Odense (Denmark) we have achieved getting allmost every dorm online by creating our own network http://odense.kollegienet.dk - sorry it's danish only. By using fiber at short distances (below 1km) and leased lines with 2mbit rad modem more than 20 dorms (ranging in sizes from 30 to 560 residents) in the city has been connected to the university which provides internet access. Everybody pays the equivalent of ~3$ a month. If you can find some people wiling to do some volunteer work you can do it yourself, it takes some planning but i believe it has been woth it.
Have you talked to NCREN or the university?
A dry copper loop is what? 30 bucks a month... and two dsl pipes are maybe 50-60 bucks on ebay... it would be easy to put up a 2.1 or a 1.5 mbit connection.
And don't say there are not enough ip addresses. UNC-G has a class B.... I'm willing to bet CH has a class b also.
My point exactly...
if you want the University to take care of all the details of your life, live in the dorms. Move off campus if you want to pretend to be a responsible adult.
Responsible adults pay for their own internet access.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
There's a guy who lives on the big island of Hawaii and has managed to set up antennas to run 802.11b to selected areas of the island. I'm trying to find the article, but I can't... it was linked here on /. a number of weeks ago.
Also, the city of Yakima, WA is mostly wired with 802.11b, according to the sysadmin at my company, who set the system up.
Quite possibly, using a network of directional antennas, a few tall buildings, and inexpensive local access points, you can set up relatively good public 802.11b network that would serve the needs of most students.
The best way to do the local access points would be to set up an omnidirectional rebroadcast relay. From previous reading and no practical experience, it seems that this could simply be a cheap box running linux (even a low-end pentium will work...) with a cheap (can be home-made, I think) directional receiver and a omnidirectional antenna (just a regular 802.11b card will work) and some software to glue the two together.
Can someone else provide accurate technical details? I'll admit that networking is really my weak area.
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Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
I think you have a lot to learn. I've done 3.5 years of University now and am surviving without taking a loan. If I can not have to worry about how much money I have for food or the sort then all the better. In addition to that I'm in a high tuition program which they keep increasing every term. DSL prices have to be cheap for them to be affordable and in my area they are cheap $30 Canadian a month. Divide that among 4 people and I pay $30 a term for High speed...oh yeah.
internet like monkeys'
If paying for it is really that bad, move in w/ a couple geeks and spread the cost of the connection between you.
:)
...
"Stop making so much noise screwing, I'm concentrating on debugging the linux kernel up here!"
Um, he said move in with a couple of GEEKS. They probably wouldn't get laid that often since they too are busy debugging the kernel.
Our school provides laptops to students as part of their tuition. That way everyone gets one and the cost of the laptop can be included in the financial aid package. Perhaps your school could do something similar with the internet access? I'm sure on campus people pay a fee that goes towards internet access, if you paid the same fee and lived off campus perhaps they could get a group discount or something by paying for the access themselves in bulk and them allocating it to you? I don't know. Purely speculation.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
I'd say one advantage to a university providing inernet access for students besides just price is that a large organization can actually get decent connectivity, whereas individual users may have very limited options. And because a big pipe will be shared by a number of users, the associated increase in tutition may well be less than what it would cost an individual student to get their own decent net connection.
funny since I'm working a full time job
internet like monkeys'
Unfortunately, most public universities in the US are having budget problems, and jacking up tuition. If they were to provide 'universal broadband', there is no gov't money to pay for it, it'd have to be in student fees, so they would end up paying for it anyways. I think that broadband users are likely to be a minority, and this would outrage the rest of the student body. IE not going to happen.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
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So far the results have been fantastic and it's based on students learning most of the material ahead of time and then learning what they don't know in class.
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Is this fundamentally different than expecting them to read their textbooks before class? Most people don't bother...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Fundamentally yes because text books don't cover everything that the Professor may teach. Also, people learn in different ways.
Now you may be saying but aren't they just reading online? The answer is yes and no. Yes in that there are text book references but only the important parts have been extracted (not the filler). Secondly, the professors lectures have been videotaped and are available online (without all the umms and errrs).
This helps those who learn by seeing and/or reading. Also, the system also tests and gives assignments that must be done prior to class. This way the professor can find out what the class is struggling to understand and better explain that during class.
The concept of the system is new and it wasn't popular last term (September to December, here in Canada our school terms are 4 months and you typically take two a year although I've been doing continous school since 1999), but now that the online system is in place it's caught on like wildfire. The results are impressive as well, the tests are no longer easy as all the students know more, those that like to skip class still learn everything.
So basically, the text book is now the supplement to the course. In no way is the course being moved online as the student professor relationship is still important. It's just that the class is now a QA time rather than just take notes notes and more notes.
internet like monkeys'
You're marked as a troll and they are the one asking the question. Go figure.
This sounds great, but just try getting a local telco to sell you a dry pair. Unless you're an alarm company, they'll do their best to give you the runaround.