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CWRU Opens Largest Wi-Fi Net
server1 writes "In what could be the largest public wireless service in the world, Case Western Reserve University is opening more than 1,230 Cisco Aironet 1200 Series wireless access points on September 1, providing free Internet access to faculty, students, staff and visitors to the Case campus and University Circle." Good news for Clevelanders looking for some free wireless internet access.
University of Akron's also got very good wireless coverage, and they push laptops rather heavily. It was so terribly convenient. I'm not going there anymore, alas... I miss it. The speed was really blazing, and nothing compares to the ability to actually be online looking up information related to your lectures while they're happening... can make for a much greater understanding of the material.
:(
Alas, my current school has some kind of fledgling deal going on, but so far I haven't even been able to get it to work, and they aren't very good about providing information on it.
I don't really see how this is news. Purdue has a good 1600 access points on campus and have total coverage in all the buildings and are working on open space coverage now. Any student/staff member can use it free. Here's our coverage map: http://www.itap.purdue.edu/airlink/WirelessCurrent 3.pdf
Don't abuse it. if you want to go kazaa-ing, go somewhere else. remember- when people are nice, and you abuse their trust, they tend not to be nice anymore.
Try to keep it to a dull roar, or use something encrypted at least. If you make it blatently obvious that you're doing any sort of mp3 swaping, the BSA and RIAA will rain the holy shitstorm of litigation on the school.
make sure if you use it, you write a letter of praise or something to the dean or head of IT praising their decision to make it open to the public.
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Last time I've checked, Drexel University in Philadelphia held this wireless title, not to mention the fastest Internet link of any university. When an announcement touts a school like this with "could be" instead of "is" makes me suspicious that they worded it in a way that could either allow what they're claiming to be false, or they didn't bother to fact check to confirm its validity.
Anyone know more about where Drexel weighs in? Kind of a silly pissing contest, but having the Best or Fastest (blank) for a school is good marketing.
I run a College network, and the thought of any Tom, Dick or Harry being able to wander in and use my network for pretty much anything would be enough to give me nightmares for a month. Can you imagine the potential security issues there, or virus outbreaks? Cold shower time...
While I see wireless as a potentially flexible system, it is a security and management nightmare. We've banned our students from using their own wireless routers for just this reason.
At least as of now, when they say 'faculty, students, staff, and visitors to the campus', they really mean it. Presently, if you want to actually USE the wireless, you have got to VPN into the system. Until then, your computer will just recognize that there IS an access point, but you sure can't surf the net unless you've got an account with CWRU.
So maybe this isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Until i hear that anyone with a laptop can actually use the access points without going and talking to the school for access, i'm a little skeptical. It's still sweet tho, 'specially if you live on campus.
It is interesting to see CWRU do this, as Ohio State likely would never dare try this. At Ohio State, all systems connected to the network must authenticate their users. If a system is unable to do so, the network switches typically force users onto a logon server in order to verify whom they are.
This is a result of OSU's network policy (PDF file - see item #13). There are a few exceptions, but for the most part this is true.
OSU's wireless 802.11 service requires users to login, and pay for some sort of dialup plan. Even the $1.95/month one counts.
I am not intimiately involved with the project, as I work in the EECS department at Case and not ITS. However, I do know a lot of people that *do* work within ITS and keep myself informed enough to know that most of what's being spouted here is inaccurate at the least and FUD at worst.
In any case (no pun intended), here's what's going down.
Case currently has deployed 600 at last count (a few months ago) Cisco WAPs with 802.11b. By the end of the project, almost 1200 WAPs will be deployed campus wide. When Cisco starts shipping the 802.11g radios for the Aironets, all of the radios in all of the APs are going to get upgraded to g.
OK. That's done.
Next, currently it is REQUIRED that anyone wanting to use the WAPs must authenticate to a Cisco VPN server and gain access to campus network services as if they were physically on the network. HOWEVER, starting September 1st, ANYONE will be able to use another SSID on any WAP to gain access to the network AS IF they were outside of the CWRU firewall. ANYONE. Script kiddies, goofballs, terrorists... your mother... anyone. Also with that, though, are some SERIOUS controls and, I would assume, monitoring of the traffic. The first big control is bandwidth throttling. No, you wouldn't be able to park (if you could find parking at least) outside of a building and snarf down kazaa bullshit (besides, Kazaa is mostly throttled for everyone anyway. P2P is such a waste of resources, but I digress). So don't think you're going to be able to pull down at 4 to 5 Mbps on the "guest" network. What you WILL be able to do is check mail, browse the web and do activity and most "normal" people would be able to do. If you want to do high bandwidth wireless applications, you'd have to use the VPN.
So, while this is authoritative I believe I can speak with some certainty that what I have said above is correct and true.
Also, I want to state that my words here are not necessarily the official views of my employer, Case Western Reserve University and are my own based upon publically published information.