All Princeton dorms will be equipped with wireless internet starting next fall, providing an additional service to the Ethernet network currently in all indoor spaces in the residential colleges, upperclass housing and graduate college.
"Students increasingly regard a wireless environment as an important part of their lifestyle, and many have told us that they would like to see wireless installed in Princeton's dormitories," Provost Chris Eisgruber '83 said in an email.
All SCI computers purchased since the fall of 2002 have wireless capabilities, which will allow most students to take advantage of the new network. It will be installed across the campus this summer, and OIT hopes to complete the project by the fall. The University will continue to provide Internet access through the current Ethernet cables as well.
Steven Sather, director of Support Services at OIT, said the new network will provide "comparable per-person speeds" to the current system. He added that "for some operations it will still be faster throughput if you plug in through your wall box, but for day-today activity like email and surfing the Internet you will have plenty of bandwidth."
The new access points will have a total capability of 54 megabytes per second, shared among all users online at that point. Current wireless locations have a bandwidth of 11 megabytes per second.
To provide full coverage in all dorms, Sather said specialists will "do a site survey with test radio equipment and literally walking around with meters."
"If we have places with weak or marginal coverage that are discovered next fall, OIT would modify that so that there's an acceptable level in every place," he said.
When this is complete, OIT's wireless coverage will expand from about 15 to 20 percent of indoor space on campus to cover about two-thirds of the space. The current wireless network mainly covers academic spaces like McCosh, Frist and Firestone.
Eisgruber declined to comment on how much the proposal will cost, but praised Sether and Vice President for Information Technology Betty Leydon for finding "creative ways to finance the installation and operation."
Sather said OIT has not decided whether they will need to bring in temporary employees to help with the installation, but said that for OIT's installation specialists, "this would be consuming the next few months of their lives."
"This is a very significant project," Sather said.
Stu Anderson '07, an RCC in Butler, said that "it's going to represent an interesting challenge for RCCs because we will have to deal with the wired dormnet and now also the wireless network."
He said he hopes the wireless network will eliminate problems created by people with individual wireless routers.
Eisgruber and Sather both said they were excited about the project, which Sather described as "a significant enhancement to the IT infrastructure."
"[The change will be] very positive for students. It gives them the flexibility to use information technology resources in more locations and a wider variety of ways," Sather said.
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