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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."
Are they forgetting that these 11Mbps or 54Mbps speeds are the aggregate total for an access point? I hope not.
Also, if you get a powerful enough microwave or something else that transmits in that 2.4Ghz wavelength it should be fairly easy to bring down the entire campus "phone, cable TV, and Internet services."
Sounds like fun.
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It depends on what the network was like BEFORE the switch to wireless. If the buildings were all wired with Cat-3 cable to the wall port, why rewire with Cat-5 and then do it again in a very few years when you need fiber or some new Cat-X cable?
Maybe wireless isn't as good as wired yet, but it isn't that bad either. The overall savings they may realize by no longer having to run new cables to every friggin wall port should more than make up for any cost now. When wifi improves, just swap out the access points.
Life is short: void the warranty.
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
Not-quite-so-dumb-question:
Would wired gigabit be enough for a decent cable tv selection, assuming you were competent to set up the multicasting correctly? And how much bandwidth would it eat up per channel, and what kind of video might you get?
Is it truly enough bandwidth that you could consider wasting a bunch of it on say, a basic cable setup?
Multiplying this same convenience across a college campus -- to outdoor use, informal study groups in first-floor rooms, empty classrooms, etc. -- would be amazing.
.. it's also throwing TV (which I read to mean, "uncompressed streaming video) and phone service, both of which are huge bandwidth hogs, things for which the university probably already has perfectly good copper wire infrastructure, and things where you don't need the device to move around much. (TV should be obvious, for the phone remember that professors' offices tend to resemble closets more than caverns, a phone in a classroom wouldn't be extraordinarily useful, and administrative offices tend to be broken into small cubes.)
It would be amazing. Amazingly expensive and kludgey and slow.
There might be a wireless technology that is suited to this sort of application, but it sure as heck isn't WiFi.
And this isn't just for internet access.
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...
I have NetGear's 108Mbps Wireless G "Turbo". It works wonders. And yes it reaches farther than any reasonable person would want to run a cord. To the edges of my 1 acre yard actually if you count a 60% signal, which works fine.
That's not the point though. If distance were the only issue then your TV remote might as well be wired. How lame would that be?
Operator, give me the number for 911!
"Wireless purely for the sake of wireless is just a stupid idea."
Living in a college dorm is expensive enough. Phone bill? $30/mo. Cable? (Granted, it's a luxury.) $40-80/mo.
I don't know if, from an infrastructure point of view, this can be practically be done. However, if it can, this means a few things:
1.) Potentially lower cost to students for basic services. (Assuming the cable co. doesn't go apeshit over it...)
2.) Wireless means not having to upgrade cables. If, for example, they need to rewire the building to use gig-E, that's an expensive proposition. What happens when the new late great technology like fibre comes along?
3.) Intangibles. Students are exposed to both networking AND wireless networking in a way that benefits them. Maybe I can only speak for myself here, but when I got my first job where the network was a major aspect of the daily routine, I picked up a lot of valuable stuff. Stuff that's been quite useful at the job I have now. As an employee out in the 'real world', I'm more valuable for being able to take advantage of networking etc to smooth out work flow. In other words, it's a good thing that networking/internet is less abstract for office employees.
I say: If they can pull it off, more power to them. Collaboration is a very important aspect for most careers.
"Derp de derp."