As noted early in the summer, the 2007-2008 ITS capital budget includes provisions for a number of upgrades to the campus network. Several of these have been completed, and several others are nearing completion. So, it's time for a report to the campus community covering 1) greater bandwidth to the Internet, 2) expanded wireless coverage, 3) network access control, and 4) the extension of the campus network to Banta Bowl. This report covers the first two of these. Expect more information on the second two in about a week.
Greater Internet Bandwidth. We have more than doubled the speed of the campus's connection to the Internet—from 20 Mbps in 2006-2007 to 45 Mbps today. Demand for Internet bandwidth was up sharply last year as more Lawrentians made more frequent use of Internet resources for teaching, learning, and recreation. We use a bandwidth management system to allocate bandwidth to individual computers based on established priorities. Because we had insufficient bandwidth available last year, however, even our best efforts at equitable allocation were inadequate, and overall network responsiveness suffered.
Effective July 1, we switched to a different Internet service provider and brought substantial additional bandwidth on line. After a few days of “hiccups” caused by the transition to the new provider, the new arrangements are working well. We are now gradually adjusting our bandwidth allocation rules to take better advantage of this increase. Anecdotal reports indicate that our users are finding connections to the Internet are faster and more consistent. We'd love to hear about your experiences in this regard.
Wireless Expansion. We're continuing our multi-year effort of expanding the number of locations on the campus where the network is available wirelessly. We're now in our fourth year of this project. Our goals for the current year are to complete coverage in academic buildings and to offer wireless access in public areas of student residences.
At this point, each of the large residence halls offers wireless access in the main-floor lounges. Those installations were completed in late summer and were operational by the time the halls opened to new students in September. Coverage is available in Colman, Hiett, Kohler, Ormsby, Plantz, Sage, and Trever.
In academic buildings, Science Hall, Briggs, and the library were already covered fully. To date, we've completed work in Conservatory West, Main Hall, Shattuck, and Wriston. We're currently working on Music-Drama and Youngchild Hall and will be adjusting our installation in the library to provide better coverage and signal strength. We anticipate that work on new wireless installations will be complete before the Thanksgiving holiday.
Wireless access continues to be available also in Memorial Union and the Barber Room of Jason Downer Commons. And we may do some “tweaking” of the equipment in the library in order to improve signal strength in a few areas where it is weak.
With the academic spaces completed, we will be using the late fall and early winter to establish wireless goals for next year. We'll be discussing these goals with the Technology Advisory Committee and with LUCC's Student Welfare Committee, and we'd be glad to hear from other members of the campus community as part of these conversations. Please share your thoughts as comments on this blog or send e-mail to the Helpdesk.