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Wireless Everything at Dartmouth
hende_jman writes "Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire is condensing its phone, cable TV, and Internet services all into Wi-Fi, as reported by the New York Times (free registration required). The project, which started in 2001, has added 1400 WAPs and 24,000 wired ports. All that, and cost effective too."
Those poor Dartmouth students... The future is here!
Lenina Huxley: I was wondering if you would like to have sex?
John Spartan: With you? Here? Now?
[Lenina nods]
John Spartan: Oh, yeah.
[after futuristic, contact-free "sex"]
John Spartan: I was thinkin' we could do it the old-fashioned way.
Lenina Huxley: You mean... *fluid transfer*?
Even though contact-free "sex" sounds lame I'm sure wireless beer would be something to rave about!
What will those crazy kids think of next? Wireless radio?
Brilliant! Brillant!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Wireless purely for the sake of wireless is just a stupid idea. I'm assuming they pretty much already have most of the infrastructure they need. Don't the dorms and offices and classrooms already have phone lines??? Also, the bandwidth of Wi-Fi is puny compared to gigE, which is what is required for some on-campus applications like streaming video (I'm a student at IU and we do things like that sometimes). Plus there's the whole security problem. This just seems like one big joke...
Take off every sig. For great justice.
*24,000 wired ports rounded down to 0 for sake of discussion.
Damn, wireless television... I can't beleive that this hasn't been done before...
TFA IT'S not that he doesn't like them or doubts his teaching ability, but Thomas H. Luxon, an English professor at Dartmouth College here, wants to see his students less next semester, hoping they will learn a lot more without having to look at him in a classroom. Professor Luxon, who teaches courses on Shakespeare, wishes they will instead be watching scenes from "The Merchant of Venice" or "Macbeth" on their PC's while sitting on a lawn, in a coffee shop or while relaxing in a dorm room. "That will be really cool," Professor Luxon said. "They could watch it on their own time and in their own place instead of having to go to the classroom or the media center. That means they could review it as often as they like, and they don't have to see it just once." Professor Luxon is able to release his students from the shackles of forced classroom movie viewing as a result of a major wireless convergence project that has taken Dartmouth's phone, cable and wireless systems and condensed them into one Wi-Fi network. The project, officials say, keeps students on the forefront of wireless technology, and opens up endless educational and teaching opportunities while saving the college millions of dollars. The switch, which started in 2001 and will be complete with the wireless cable rollout this fall, includes the addition of 1,400 wireless access points and 24,000 wired ports across the campus of the 236-year-old college, the first in the country to completely integrate its communications systems into a wireless infrastructure. "This really improves our ability to deliver types of information services that enhance teaching and learning," said Brad Noblet, Dartmouth's director of technical services. The first phase of the cable rollout will put the school's cable television system online. After that, students, professors and anyone else on the overall network will be able to make up his or her own "channel," showing movie clips, video projects or presentations with cable-quality video. The college's public affairs office hopes to have its own channel as well. It could also be used by students to shop for classes during course selection because they could view a few minutes of a lecture or discussion on the network, and by professors to provide discussion materials before class. Dartmouth also hopes to put all its public lectures and forums on a cable network instead of on the sometimes gritty streaming video now available. "We're really at the front end of this," said Jeffrey L. Horrell, dean of the libraries and librarian of the college. "It's not yet clear where the boundaries are." The new network could even change how students write papers. They will not replace words or writing, but might enhance, say, a paper on "The Merchant of Venice" with a clip of the actor Patrick Stewart explaining the method behind his portrayal of the character Shylock, said Professor Luxon, who teaches a course on the play. "Imagine writing a paper about one of these performances and including a video clip in your paper, like you would a quote," he said. "Now your paper isn't on paper anymore, it's on a Web site or a word file." The convergence project is meant for educational purposes, but it is not bad for entertainment, either. Students will be able to catch the latest episode of MTV's "Pimp My Ride" or any other television show anywhere on campus - including in class. While that is one more worry for professors who are now used to students staring at screens, they hope that the interaction and stimulation of a class will detract from the desire to tune in to "TRL" during sociology, Mr. Horrell said. Students, many of whom did not know about the new service, are enthusiastic. Jean Cowgill, 19, a freshman, hopes to use the network to watch materials outside of class. But, Ms. Cowgill said, the cable access might backfire. "That sounds amazing," she said. "But I don't know how great it will be for my study habits." Wireless data has been available here since 2001. Its success led the technology department to combine it with the college's
Research based institutions like Dartmouth like to be the first to do things. The prestige of being completely wireless is not to provide convenience, but to allow them to be one of the first to do something.
...means DoS attack on entire dorm
Now there's an oxymoron if I've ever seen one.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
If the wireless cable TV carries over the air channels.
My brother went to Dartmouth in 1993, and they required everyone to have a computer as they already had campus-wide "blitz mail," which was used a bit like IM. All their assignments were handed in via email, class cancellations were broadcast that way, etc. Everyone was on it.
Meanwhile, I was at Florida State in Tallahassee, where it wasn't until probably 1995 that you could even easily get a university email (we used to have to set up free city accounts at the public library, which we could then access from campus).
I don't know that it made much of a difference in his education, but he loved the wow factor and I'm sure that's at play here, too.
TFA:
Hardware: Wireless Everything at Dartmouth Wireless Networking
Posted by timothy on Wednesday May 04, @01:00PM
from the breaking-ties dept.
hende_jman writes "Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire is condensing its phone, cable TV, and Internet services all into Wi-Fi, as reported by the New York Times (free registration required). The project, which started in 2001, has added 1400 WAPs and 24,000 wired ports. All that, and cost effective too."
Guess it depends what your definition of "wireless" and "everything" is.
What if someone is digging a hole through the air and cuts their wireless connection? What then, huh?
This is unfair competition with BellAtlantic. I predict lawsuits when users demand to be given a choice.
Won't this give them all brain cancer?
The problems seem endless.
sigs, as if you care.
It's 2005 and we STILL have to use throwaway accounts to read the New York Times?
WAP? Soooo they made a bunch of cell phone web pages?
Or perhaps the submitter meant "Wireless APs"?
funny munging
This just in, instances of cancer in the Darthmouth area have been mysteriously rising over the last few years. Authorities are baffled!
Strange mutant students suddendly appearing at Dartmouth College.... Experts struggling to find cause of mutations, also discover you can fry eggs anywhere on campus.
I make these: http://beatseqr.com
At such times, my laptop, in my den, cannot see the wireless router in my living room. Granted, it doesn't occur often, but it's a major incovenience when it does.
I'm gonna WAP the next person on the head who alludes to the cell phone WAP technology as the "correct" usage of the term WAP!!!
While wireless isn't new, the idea of it being absolutely ubiquitous on campus is fantastic. How frustrating is it in the real world to have to find an AP? Even within places like airports, coverage is spotty at best and you can't really roam easily. The ability to do everything (Internet, Phone, and TV) on your laptop is great. It also saves money for the College as well. More details can be found here http://www.wi-fiplanet.com/columns/article.php/349 9271
Which are commonly abbreviated "WAP", at least where I come from.
Knowing the Dartmouth student body, this plan isn't likely to meet with widespread approval until they find a way to deliver campus-wide Wireless Drinking.
use your neighbors network.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Nothing works quite as well as a good, old-fashioned bundle of wires.
P.S. no connection to the AirPwn folks myself; I just think their particular demonstration project was eff-ing hilarious.
-paul
Pistol caliber is like religion: everyone has their favourite, and theirs is the only right choice.
...and I work at the helpdesk, no less. I've beta-tested the VOIP rollout and supported the rest. My personal opinion is that the wireless network will NOT hold up well under heavy load once all these services go into widespread use. As it stands now, things slow to a crawl during finals, etc, when people swarm the library and the APs. This is, after all, an 802.11b campuswide network. The backbone is there, but I don't know how the APs will deal with all these latency-sensitive streams. Side note: they've been promoting the VOIP option in the media for months now, but students aren't allowed to get extensions. A little disingenuous, no? Hell, I'd just be happy if the "100% coverage" actually ever gave me a signal in my room. There's some content, and prospects, for this--but so far, it's just PR-fluff.
...1400 WAPs in a small geographic area contributes to 2.4GHz sterility in males and females.
However, notes an unidentified Dartmouth sophomore interviewed at March 30 mixer, "most of us are into one-night stands anyway, so this'll make it less risky. Hell -- you're assuming we're getting any in the first place!"
Although students seem OK with sterility, Dartmouth human resources is retrofitting all faculty and staff cubicles and offices on campus with tin foil.
IronChefMorimoto
Just imagine...a world without wires. Kind of like a world without Windows. Nice dream, unlikely reality
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Unfortunately, they aren't going to have the bandwidth. Brandeis is currently implementing a video-over-IP solution (actually the same one Dartmouth is going with too) and it requires a lot of bandwidth. The problem with doing it over WiFi is that WiFi bandwidth is per base-station not per computer. A network that can get 54Mbps can't get 54Mbps per computer. And for a video stream you are going to need a lot of bandwidth.
It makes sense to consolidate video and voice onto the data network. For example, while rooms might have phone lines, those copper wires cost a lot to maintain as they age and that means ripping up ground to fix things. Same with the coax. When you go from 3 wires that you have to keep running to 1 wire, it really reduces costs.
Oh, but the VideoFurnace software is a really crappy Java player. They claim Linux compatibility, but not really.
You mean to tell me that my remote control doesn't count as wireless television?
With all those radio and micro waves running around, I really hope the kids don't get some type of weird brain cancer... I'm sure it's probably like living right by a radio transmission tower or power lines.
now the 2.4ghz phones get to interfere with their own connection!
I'd like to see the 'chief complaint' data from the main healthcare provider there before and after this massive wireless installation. It will be interesting to track any changes in the types and occurences of certain types of illnesses to see what kind of effect some of our new technologies are having on our health.
wireless network cameras
Get your tagline off my lawn.
Rip out the magnetron and you have 800 to 1200 watts of 2.4GhZ radiation that can either be fanned via reflectors (although it diminishes its power) or a single particle beam that will destroy any integrated circuit it hits by causing sparks to jump between the gates.
I made one years ago. It killed IC's instantly at 100 feet.
I hid behind a piece of roofing tin and used a 50 foot extension cord when I turned it on.
I think I have cancer now.
Would you expect anything less from the college that inspired animal house?
Wake me when they convert everything to Sub-Etha ;)
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
1. design faraday cage for setup and use in dorm room.
2. promote use of wireless broadband on campus and proliferation of high frequency devices/base stations.
3. profit!
It is feasable to push basic cable over GigE.
Quick back of hand estimate gives 1 Mbit/s for decent quality DivX. This is based on a 360MByte avi for about 45minutes of video. The only problem with this is the cpu time required to encode DivX (and my example is probably two pass and not suitable for live tv). IIRC dvd quality MPEG2 is about 12Mbit/s. Hardware mpeg encoders are practically free and use very little cpu time. In both cases you are going to need some decent hardware. Mpeg will require a better network backbone. DivX encodeing will require a number of cpus to handle the encodeing.
Researchers have discovered a formidable cancer cluster in Hanover, New Hampshire. Apparently over a thousand students have been diagnosed since 2001. Researchers think it may have something to do with enormous RF activity in the area.
Whether or not you're a legacy has some say in admissions, but generally only if you're on the cusp. Most students at Dartmouth aren't legacies. Most students at Dartmouth come from public schools, too.
The quality of the education was worth the price, and not once have I regretted not going to Williams, Amherst, Duke, or Northwestern (yup, got into all of them). Dartmouth is one hell of a school, hopefully Wright doesn't succeed in turning it into Princeton v2.
I'm curious.
Anybody know what vendor(s) they are using for all this?
One might assume Cisco, but one might also assume they aren't
foolish enough to fall into a single vendor lock-in.
Graduated last year and wireless coverage was spotty at best. There were a lot of access points but whatever they put in the walls in the dorms wasn't very wifi friendly. I couldn't get a stable connection with an AP in the middle of the hall, so unless they put an AP in front of every room I don't see this working.
In the more open public buildings or the new dorms with paper thin walls it might work, but this isn't going to be a viable, cost effective alternative to wires for providing service to most students.
On the other hand it'd be nice to watch TV on the Green during the summer, if you have a reflective LCD laptop but since you're snowed in for half the year it's more of a luxury than a solution.
five years ago, dartmouth was considered the most wired campus in america. and that was a good thing. two years ago, dartmouth was considered the most unwired campus in america. and that was a good thing. as somebody who lives in the town (hanover) and gets wifi reception all over the place, i'd say it's a good thing. of course that's just from a leeching standpoint. unfortunately they'll be switching away from assigning real ips via wifi soon...
The wireless access, no matter what the numbers say, is just not the same as a real hose connected to the wall. The latency 'feels' worse, the LAN 'seems' sluggish and spongy. If the wireless technology is not actually used universally by those that actually created it, why would I think that anyone else would use it for their desktop machine.
For the campus, where most of the population is nomadic, it is likely workable. But to assume that people, like professors, in fixed offices will like the wireless over the wired connection, it just ain't gonna happen.
A most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is if they foul up there's no law against wacking them around a bit.
The article leaves out some cool stuff like they use Vocera which act like StarTrek communicator badges. I get a kick out of asking where a specific person is and because of the aceess point they are connected to the computer answers back with their location and if you would like to call them, all while walking across the campus. And they also leave out the fact that they don't bother using any security on their 802.11 though.
All those color glossy ads of attractive people wearing designer fashions sitting in coffee houses or ultramodern buildings with their laptops just smell like a lifestyle sales pitch to me.
It's not like they could be doing very much serious computing on those connections, with those computers. It's jerk-off consumer computing -- web, email, IM, P2P.
I know I'm gonna get flamed by the 3 Slashbots running Xterm sessions to Blue Gene or something "important" via wifi, but I still think it's largely a solution supporting a "cool" urban lifestyle, and not something that solves real problems in computing.
soon, maybe i won't have to even get up for class.
The reputation of 'smart' people coming from Ivy League has started to erode , especially with the surge of state universities reaching tier one status coupled with competitive student bodies. Nowadays, companies put very little stock in the university and give all applicants an equal shot at getting the job. Smart students come from just about anywhere, you don't need to be a rich slob to be labled as 'educated' anymore.
Ivy League is for people who have deep wallets. The smart people get their scholarships and to go a highly acclaimed state university and enjoy much of the same success in the job market or in research, all without having to fork out for student loans for the rest of their lives.
YOu can see what this area looks like from a wardriver's perspective, at WiFiMaps.com.
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
here in Seattle, from Downtown to Fremont.
Faster than T-1, at only $800/month - or get 1.4 Mbps at only $500/month.
Me, I just use free WiFi from the Fremont Arts Council, which broadcasts from the Fremont Powerhouse at 3940 Fremont Ave N and is a bonus for all the FAC members who put on the parade each year.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I work for a division of computing at Dartmouth, and having used the new cable system over the network, I have to say that I was impressed. It's not the fastest thing in the world, but it seemed like a lot of that was coming from the fact that the interface is just a java app launched from your browser (and I was testing it on an old quirky tablet). It still worked though. Quality was reasonable, and CNN headline news still looked like CNN. So it actually works-I don't think they would be implementing it if it didn't. Although, being an educational institution, you never know... The only issue is going to be that they want to open the system up for students to broadcast their own stations. The estimate around my office is that it will be about 3.5 hours after it's up before the first student run porn station pops up.
As a Dartmouth student watching the TV right now, I can tell you they've addresed all the problems. Wireless access is only available over 802.11a (because if a b client logs onto a g it slows it down) and the wired network. Our wired network is fiber between dorms, with 100mbit in each room (supposedly soon to go gigabit). There is a nice video guide that lets you see what is on, and when you tune it it starts right up. The only annoying thing is the scratch audio, it has these weird squeaks, but I'm sure it'll get fixed - we've only had it for a few days.
I'm pleased that the college is switching from Quicktime to MPEG. Standards are good.
I also want to counter some common misconceptions. I go to Dartmouth. The wireless isn't new. At long as I've been there, I've found wireless coverage to be ubiquitous but slow.
Also realize that "wireless" is just a marketing buzzword. Most of this video will be traveling down CAT-5. The wired infrastructure is quite good, and that's how I normally connect to the network. It's how I expect most people will use these videos.
I'm not typical, but this is how I use the Dartmouth network: I don't use wireless on the green. I leave my laptop in my room running sshd on Cygwin, and just use public terminals. Carrying a laptop is OK, but just carrying a hostname and password around in your head is even easier!
That said, some of the other things said about Dartmouth here are in fact true:
But hey, you can't have everything!
and if they care about it, they are going to need to multiply that price by the number of system admins and divide the pay between them because that's going to take a ton of work to secure.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher