Wireless Networking What Role Will It Play in Your Campus's Future

Citation

Cohen, J.A. (2001), "Wireless Networking What Role Will It Play in Your Campus's Future", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918aac.004

Wireless Networking What Role Will It Play in Your Campus's Future

Joel A. Cohen

Wireless Networking What Role Will It Play in Your Campus's Future

Wireless is considered one of the most important emerging technologies by the Educause Evolving Technologies Committee (see http://www.educause.edu/etcom). Wireless was a hot topic at the conference, whether on the exhibit floor, in several track sessions, or at this roundtable discussion. This article reviews one session, "Wireless networking what role will it play in your campus's future", though the underlying assumption was that at some point, everybody will be doing wireless. There were 66 attendees representing nearly as many institutions at this session.

Wireless technology is ideal for libraries where there may be a limited number of patrons who are independently accessing electronic library materials. On the other hand, high concentrations of laptops performing graphic access in unison would be a performance challenge, though at least one roundtable attendee, Canisius College, was successfully using a wireless lab for library instruction.

The emergence of the 802.11b standard has pushed wireless communication into the forefront. At a nominal 11 megabits per second transmission rate, or bandwidth, this standard yields bandwidth that approaches the first Ethernet transmission rate. Like early Ethernet, though, the available bandwidth must be shared among many users. Current wired network technologies enable dedicated bandwidth that can be switched, in whole, among its users, similar to telephone systems that enable conversations between people without quality compromise because of high telephone traffic.

Wireless Ethernet requires Access Points that tie into the wired network. Each access point can support 15-20 computer users sharing the bandwidth. The Access Points are radio transmitters and other radio frequency devices that can interfere with transmission: leaky microwave ovens, 2.4 GHz wireless telephones, and other access points. These devices, along with emerging Bluetooth communication standards, all operate in the 2.4 GHz range. The networking area of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has a practice of regulating this 2.4 GHz spectrum on campus. The government promotes this frequency as being unlicensed, so there is a potential conflict that will need to be worked out at CMU and other institutions as more of these devices show up on campus.

To communicate with the Access Points, users install wireless network cards on their laptops. The cost of these cards has been falling rapidly; cards are now available in the $125 range. Major Windows-based laptop vendors are rumored to be on the verge of selling laptops already integrated with wireless connectivity, as Apple has already done with its iBook laptop.

Because wireless transmission consists of radio signals that may be intercepted by unintended audiences both on and off campus, authentication and security are important issues with which wireless campuses must deal. To enable roaming among 1,500 wireless devices, network managers at Buena Vista University implemented a virtual local area network (VLAN). CMU network managers have also used a "flat subnet" to assign static IP numbers to 2,000 network users, but they are looking for better ways to assign access to a large number of wireless users.

A frequently asked question to these early adapters is, how many Access Points are needed? The answer to this question depends on the particular devices being used as well as the number of people and other items, such as library stacks, that are in the area. New standards in the future will result in both higher transmission speed and reduced transmission radius. For example, the future 802.11a standard will result in a nominal transmission rate of 54 megabits per second, but will only cover half the area as 802.11b, so the number of access points will need to be doubled. For these reasons, a wireless design should not be completed as part of a building's design, but will need to be fine tuned after the building is in use. A rule of thumb at building design time is generous support for Access Points with category 5 or better cable; vendors are working on supplying power through category 5 cables, so AC power at the access point will not be an issue in the future.

The attendees at this roundtable discussion wanted to stay in touch with each other and others who are interested in wireless campus communication. The facilitator, Dewitt Latimer (dewitt@utk.edu), Director of Computing and Network Services at the University of Tennessee, set up a listserv, WIRELESSLAN@listserv.utk.edu, to facilitate communication. People interested in wireless issues are free to join the listserv at any time.

Joel A. Cohen is Associate Vice President for Library and Information Services, Canisius College, Buffalo, New York. cohen@canisius.edu.