One Glimpse Of The Wireless Future

SemiBarbaricPrincess writes "Check out this story at wired.com about wireless networks on college campuses. The focus is on Dartmouth College." It would be great to see this kind of wireless community outside academia too.

Comments

Wireless??? Bandwidthless!!!

[Lolaine]

My experience is that a generic 802.11 solution out of the box for a generic user drops more packets than a large-twisted-bitten-cornered UTP cable.
If you want good perfomance you have to mess with antenae, wires, pringles-eating and that sort of things... (I will not talk about security and war drivers, just in case ;D )

Campus WiFi works when kept secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Here at UC Berekeley they've been running a pilot program called AirBears. Basically they outfitted a few facilities (library, some cafes, etc) with 802.11b access points. Because it's a pilot program, it wasn't publicly advertised. People who are using wireless do so because they heard about it through word of mouth from other users. They're running software to track access leves at the various points around the campus, and it seems the number of users is in the mere dozens (although its increasing). And those few users account for a lot of traffic. I can only imagine what would happen if hundreds of people started using the same access points. The system would probably break down and become unusuable. Has anyone here experienced a densely used WiFi network?

I hope the future is even better

[PureFiction]

This is a great example of how pervasive, open wireless hotspots can empower individual communication in unexpected ways.

It will not be long before this kind of saturation is common in all the metropolitan areas (previous studies have placed wireless growth at double the current deployment by 2005)

The biggest potential uses and applications are centered around peer network integration that support the style of personal, interactive communication people crave.

There are a few projects working towards this goal like the Janus Wireless Project . This will provide not just increased internet access reliability and throughput (using multiple AP's and simultaneous associations) but also tight integration with common peer network services, like file sharing, music broadcasting using a broadcast FEC transport and playlists, even Voice over IP.

This kind of infrastructure has to be built by philantropist coders, as the business model is lacking, however, this makes it all the more tuned to what users will want, and the resulting networks in full control of those who generously provide the hardware and network connectivity (such as the Personal Telco Project .

I can only begin to imagine the possible applications of a robust, open wireless network coupled with integrated peer network services and good internet connectivity. This will be one of the most interesting and innovative areas of growth in the near future.

Re:Security

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Going wireless takes on huge security issues.

Garbage. Don't believe the hype. Where are banks being robbed? Where are spammers using other people's networks? (hint: whatever you've read, there's not been a single case so far, there probably will be eventually, but there hasn't yet been.).

How is Dartmouth going to deal with tightening down security? I know of people that drove down through a city with a laptop and pringles cans and picked up alot of wireless networks (including a state lottery wireless network). So that would be the biggest concern for me.

There's plenty of technologies out there that can lock down a network. I set up a network that used VPN software. Anyone could connect to the network. Wouldn't do you any good if you didn't have a password though.

I would rather be wired and go gigabyte

Gigabyte? Not gigabit? Gigabyte has not been deployed anywhere as far as I know. You can actually buy wireless networks. Gigabit has huge issues, the range is in feet, unless you go fibered, and that's expensive still, more than wireless.

than go wireless and be stuck at speeds less than 100 megabytes. Wireless is nice, but it is also more expensive than staying wired.

The wireless cards are currently about twice the price, but NICs and hubs are one of the cheaper components in a system, and they're coming down rapidly.

Re:Security

[nevershower]

I don't know about Dartmouth, but at CMU, you have to register your MAC address. To do that, you need to have a campus username and password. If you didn't register, you the DHCP server doesn't give you an IP.

It is great!

[The Mainframe]

I live in Hanover, NH (the home of Dartmouth College) and discovered their extensive wireless network about a year and a half ago. It is truly an impressive piece of work. There is a "green" of about two acres in the middle of town that is blanketed with 802.11, but that's not so exciting as the fact that almost anywhere in downtown Hanover an ambitious surfer can lock on to Dartmouth's connection. Eating a sandwich in out local Subway, I surf the web. Driving through town, I check my e-mail and cache Slashdot.
The network is comprised of a vast number of Cisco Aironet access points with high-gain antennas. One can roam seamlessly on it, and the signal is consistently strong. There are, in fact, so many access points that one can pinpoint a computer's location on campus by getting latency from its MAC to three access points.
The only problem is: the wireless network doesn't broadcast its name, so you have to know it or find it out. And I"m not going to tell you.