College to introduce campus-wide Wi-Fi soon

Author: Brian Fung

Middlebury could boast a full-fledged, campus-wide wireless network as early as next year, according to College officials. Network administrators familiar with the plan said that contract negotiations with product vendors are already underway. Installation of wireless routers across campus grounds could begin immediately upon their successful conclusion.

"We could possibly begin work on the project as early as [this] summer," said Thomas Cutter, area director for Systems and Infrastructure, "with an eye towards completing the entire roll-out within the next 12 months."

The College is in the midst of discussing the project with three competing businesses, one of which will provide the routers necessary for the wireless network. Cutter declined to give the names of the companies due to the sensitivity of the business talks.

Wireless Internet access is currently limited to only a few facilities. The New Library, the Grille, dining halls and McCardell Bicentennial Hall are all popular sites for Wi-Fi access.

By next year, however, according to Cutter, the convenience of Wi-Fi could become available within "all major interior spaces in College buildings - including dorms." With the introduction of campus-wide wireless, students housed in even the oldest residence halls would be able to check e-mail, do research and stay in touch with friends from the comfort of their beds or sofas.

The delay in expanding wireless Internet service was justified by allowing the technology to develop, according to Howie McCausland, director of Network Design and Operations.

"Until recently, we had been holding off on installing wireless Internet because the technology was still evolving," said McCausland. "There just wasn't a groundswell of need at the time, because we had wired service."

In addition, said McCausland, wireless technology, up until several years ago, was "fraught with dangers." Unlike wired network access, in which each connection is isolated from its neighbors by an Ethernet cable, a wireless router funnels much of its traffic through the same channels, regardless of the user. The comparatively transparent nature of wireless Internet thus allowed computer viruses to indiscriminately infect whole batches of machines within seconds.

The rapid expansion of information technology in recent years, however, has meant the development of newer wireless routers with advanced features, including enhanced encryption services and better network maintenance capabilities. The devices to be purchased in the coming months are among the industry's latest products, and can handle moderate Internet traffic with minimal impact on download speeds - all while preserving user security.

The initiative's projected cost remains unclear, but Cutter estimated the costs could range from $250,000 to $300,000.

McCausland declined to quote a price tag, merely saying, "You can't just buy a thousand of those [standard commercial routers] and put them up everywhere."

McCausland made clear that the evolution of Wi-Fi at the College would not render wired Internet service obsolete. Though wireless access has its conveniences, he said, it nevertheless suffers from certain limitations.

"The wired network is always going to be faster," he said, explaining that where an Ethernet connection can reach sustained download speeds of up to 100 megabits per second (Mbps), today's wireless standard can only achieve speeds of about 50 Mbps - and only under optimal usage conditions. Though users may not notice much of a difference between wired and wireless service when simply accessing Web sites, the speed discrepancy becomes evident once they begin downloading large files such as videos.

Still, for many, the convenience of wireless effectively offsets the smaller bandwidth. McCausland attributed much of the recent drive for Wi-Fi to the technology's "cool" factor.

"A lot of this is fashion trend," he said. "We're doing this because people ask for it. People like the idea of wireless connectivity."

Students may well come to like Wi-Fi even more with the arrival of spring. In addition to equipping buildings with wireless, the College holds tentative plans to experiment with Wi-Fi outdoors. Network administrators expect to bring several outdoor areas online on a trial basis, though specific target locations have yet to be named.

"It would be helpful to get input from the campus community on priority areas for outside service," said Cutter, explaining that the Wi-Fi initiative depends greatly on student support.

Because of the College's expansive grounds, the Department of Library and Information Services will be restricted to enabling Wi-Fi only in the most heavily-used public outdoor spaces. Though no project to survey student opinion on the best areas for outside service has been organized as yet, McCausland was confident that such a movement would eventually occur.