Slashdot Mirror
Intel Ranks Colleges with Best Wireless Access
newdamage writes "Intel recently released it's ranking of The Most Unwired College Campuses and I was happy to see my school, Purdue, up there at #2. I can personally attest that my laptop w/ wireless card can be used over almost all of the main campus, and there's always a few people in lecture using laptops to access notes and take extra notes. Granted all I've found is that internet access in class just gives me a better way to not pay attention. What are other peoples' experiences with wireless access on their campus? Is there widespread coverage, and if so, does it help you get more school related work done by having your laptop connected where ever you are on campus?"
Are the Most Unwired Airports and Most Unwired Cities lists.
Also, do these lists just count wireless access points that Centrino supports? It almost sounds like some sort of propaganda...
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
I attend the University of Alabama in Huntsville, which has an atrocious track record on networking issues.
Our Network Services department, despite repeated requests from faculty and students, has not set up any sort of wireless coverage anywhere on campus. They also prohibit faculty and students from setting up their own wireless equipment, whether or not it is connected to their network. I am not permitted to put a wireless NIC in my desktop and have it talk to my laptop, even if neither machine is on the campus network.
(I figure that since I'm allowed to use a cordless telephone operating in the 2.4GHz band, Network Services has no right to dictate what other signals I generate in that band.)
Any Slashdotters who are pondering attending this university should think carefully about whether they are willing to accept the complete lack of wireless and consistent 15-25% packet loss on the dormitory connections. (People use dialup because it's more reliable.)
In contrast, a friend of mine in Washington University Law School frequently IM's me from class lamenting how boring class is. (How someone can be bored with a computer (with 3d card) and network access in front of them is left as an exercise to the reader.)
This is pointless, #29 is LSU, where I went. I setup the wireless there. Yes, I, 1 person. It was 2 airports in the library.
I really don't see how you could improve Carnegie Mellon's wireless network. I have never been anywhere on campus where I couldn't get a strong signal. There are even power outlets everywhere - even outside - for the "weak-batteried". Bringing your laptop to class is as normal as bringing a pencil. Check out CMUSky, it gives great statistics about Andrew in real-time.
I got to Kansas State (#47 on the list incidentally) and the only reason I looked at the site was to see if my school even made it and if so, question the integrity of the list.
K-State technically has wireless in some buildings, but not many. Yes, the library and union have wireless as do a few others, but that's where it ends. The biology and physics buildings both lack it entirely, as does the main building for the college of arts and sciences and only a large lecture hall in one of the main engineering buildings is listed as having it. Since it was installed I might have taken one or two courses that would have made it available to me. I don't have a wireless laptop myself (although my girlfriend does and I've been interested in how good the coverage is), but I doubt you'd be able to get online from anywhere outside on campus at all.
Essentially this is something they did about 2 years ago and then more or less have ignored ever since. The website for it lists that more locations will be coming, but in that time none ever have. IT out here is a joke though. Bandwidth in the dorms was so bad (i.e. >2k/sec) a few years back that almost every single student living in them had to sign a petition about it before we barely got some degree of improvement (up to maybe 10-20k/sec). The IT staff is frequently unreachable having locked themselves off in the library basement and rarely if ever respond to e-mail.
The presence of K-State on that list seems to indicate that the list compilers merely looked over webpages and cataloged the number of areas listed without any regard for the actual coverage provided.
All the machines are on public IPs and there is no sort of virus scanning or update requirements at all. We accidentally put a fresh Windows install on the wireless network and got hit with a worm in 30 seconds. The network nazis, under orders of our joke of a security office, often filter DHCP addresses because of viruses, which is great until you accidentally get the lease for a filtered address.
UT just finally figured out that maybe they should offer SSL POP and IMAP on the central mailserver after having kids on unencrypted wireless for 3 years. VPNs are just now being looked at.
The worst thing about wireless at UT is it's so inconsistent. There aren't nearly enough APs in highly populated areas, meaning you get dialup speeds are not uncommon. There are dead spots everywhere because of poor AP placement.
We were doing a voice over wireless IP pilot, and it was impossible. Each building is on it's own VLAN and they don't route to each other. Some wireless systems are maintained by departments and you can't even log into them. We could communicate in our building, but the building across the street was blind. Even getting the phones to work, with UTs homebrewed authentication system, was a beast.
Of course they don't... The whole purpose of this 'study' by Intel is to encourage schools to buy up their products. It's a marketing ploy so schools can proudly declared themselves "Most Unwired".
This is bullshit. UTK has 130 buildings covered and is converting to full 802.11(bag) coverage in the summer, with a outdoor network to come real soon now. 1310 access points with over 8500 unique users. Hell, even the friggin Creamery on the Ag Campus has 4 APs. Bossy is fraggin' as I type. I imagine that all of the schools listed have bought some Intel product to qualify. We don't use their stuff so....
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.