Core Services » Wireless

Wireless Internet demand in unexpected places met

Ethan Sommer — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 19:29:08 +0000

We have a goal of covering every building on campus with wireless network access. We aren’t quite there yet and we occasionally get requests for wireless access points to cover parts of campus that we haven’t covered yet.

Sometimes those requests are for places we never would have thought of as “places someone would want wireless.”

For example, we’ve received several requests for better coverage for the cardio equipment in lund. People want to stream music to their iPod touches and iPhones while running, or surf the web while riding a bike. As of today, we believe the cardio equipment should be covered much better than before. Stream away.

Another request we got, when we were asking people how the new wireless network in Norelius works, was for coverage in the laundry room. When we went to investigate we found that while one laundry room was covered well (there are two in Norelius) the other had almost no signal. We added a new access point to a closet nearby and students should now be able to do their homework (or check facebook) while waiting for their laundry to dry.

Where have you taken out your laptop and be disappointed to not find a signal? Where has your iPod Touch not served your need to be constantly connected? Let us know, and we’ll continue to try to make things better.

Wireless Improvements to Come

Ethan Sommer — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:00:27 +0000

We have discovered that during peek usage times, our wireless network is too big. We just have too many users on one network. We split out the wireless in the library into its own network named “GACLibrary” and it seems to have made a huge difference.

In addition, our current system of dealing with guests seems to cause a lot of confusion. Non-guests register as guests and then wonder why they can’t get to webmail and guests don’t scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the guest registration form.

In order to fix both of these issues, we are changing how we configure our wireless access points to create several wireless networks for the dorms as well as a dedicated wireless network for guests.

What does this mean for you?

Once the system is fully reconfigured, everywhere on campus guests will connect to the wireless network named “GustieGuest.”
In the dorms, students will connect to the wireless network with the name of their dorm (eg. Norelius, Southwest, Pittman, etc.) The library will continue to be “GACLibrary.” All other buildings on campus will continue to have a “GACwireless” network for now.

As we convert each dorm, users will need to search for wireless networks and join the appropriate network.

We hope that this will greatly improve wireless network performance in the evenings. Please let us know how it is working for you by e-mailing root@gac.edu or commenting on this post.

Wireless added to Fine Arts Music

Dan Oachs — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 16:36:31 +0000

A new wireless access point was added in the basement of the music building to help give coverage to the areas near the Bjorling concert hall. My initial test show that this one access point covers the hallway from the south end of the Bjorling concert hall all the way to the middle of the building. It also appears to cover many parts of the second and third floors.

Better GACWireless for Uhler Hall

Dan Oachs — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 01:38:16 +0000

This summer the network in Uhler Hall was upgraded with all new wires. As part of the update, many more jacks were installed. Each suite should now have at least one jack per person living there. Some of the other jacks that were installed are now connected to new wireless access points. Last year Uhler had 7 access points while this year there are 15 or roughly two per floor. Hopefully this will help cover the entire building with a reliable WiFi signal.

Network Upgrades

Dan Oachs — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 19:47:21 +0000

Over the past couple of weeks, we have made some improvements to the campus computer network. The most noticeable of these will be for the residents of Pittman. Four more Wi-Fi access points were installed to help improve the wireless coverage in that dorm.

Less noticeable changes were made to the wired network in Complex. The connections between the buildings were upgraded from 100Mbit to 1Gbit and the connections between sections of the dorms were upped from 100Mbit to 400Mbit.

Wireless Status Page

Ethan Sommer — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:37:04 +0000

Did you know that there is a web site to check whether your GACwirless access point is working? You can go to http://stats.it.gac.edu/wireless-watch/status.php to see a list of most of Gustavus’ wireless access points and their status.

This year about 70% of students on Gustavus’ network have made use of the wireless network. In fact, more freshmen have registered their computer on the wireless network than the wired network.

Who are the people on your network

Ethan Sommer — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 00:10:42 +0000

As people have been moving in and registering their computers, I’ve been collecting some statistics. A week after move in things seem to be settling down. (Although we just added access to the 7th street houses, which house about 30 students total.)

Here are some of the more interesting stats:
Of the students living in the dorms, as of right now (7pm on 9-12-06):
93% of all 1st years, 94% of all 2nd years, 91% of all 3rd years, and 88% of all seniors years have registered at least one computer on the network.

I personally was surprised that the percent for upperclassmen was so high, because when they entered college the percentage was quite a bit lower. (Although our statistics weren’t as good back then.)

Other stats of interest:
The percentage of students with computers with at least one OSX computer is 17% for 1st years, 13% for 2nd years, 15% for 3rd years, and 12% for seniors.

There are also interesting patterns in whether students have registered a computer on the wireless and/or wired networks. A surprising number of students still haven’t bothered to register their wired ethernet card.

year (wired%/wireless%) 1st year (68%/77%) 2nd year (78%/69%) 3rd year (78%/56%) 4th year (77%/51%)

As you can see, there are still 49% of all freshmen who have registered their wireless card but not their wired card. The spread was even more drastic as students moved in.

If you’re curious about other statistics, feel free to comment on this post (or stop by) and ask!