![]() ![]() One of the biggest things, though, that we had to worry about is security. You have to make sure that's taken into account. We have microwave ovens in little kitchens in some departments. You want to get the coverage as dense as you can but avoid overlap. So you do your site survey and you put them up, and then you have to move them around to make sure you get the most coverage out of one wireless-access point. In some of these buildings you have to make sure you place these things very carefully. When you look at a site survey, that's obviously one of the things you look at first.Ĭoverage is another thing. The network connection and the power continue to be a challenge. The architects don't want you to run an ugly conduit on the outside of a hallway, so you have to be a bit more creative. We've got older buildings, especially in Bloomington. Getting the wires from a switch to the wireless access point. We're on a three- to four-year replacement cycle.ĭescribe some of the rollout's challenges. We estimate that the cost of maintenance and life-cycle replacement amounts to about $250,000 per year. The total amount was just short of $1 million. How much have you spent on wireless-access initiatives during the last 18 months? The areas where they don't have ready access to power, they've been using Power over Ethernet, which has been outstanding, because then you run the one cable and you don't have to worry about looking around for a conduit to tap or a box. The network cabling wasn't overly difficult, but you have to get power to those things. One of the things we dealt with was that you can place a little piece of equipment in a ceiling panel just about anywhere, but then you've got to get wiring to it. After that engagement was complete, and we had a good idea of how many access points we would initially need and where they would be placed, we released a request for proposals for hardware.ĭid you do this wireless rollout with your own staff or did you contract it out?Īll of it was done internally. ![]() We engaged a consulting company to advise us and do some preliminary site surveying. We standardized on Vivato outside, and the equipment inside was Lucent/Orinoco. The last number I saw was 978 wireless-access points at Bloomington and 600 at Indianapolis. My predecessor told the telecom staff that we were going to double that number over the space of a year or 18 months. We had a few hundred - maybe 300 or 400 - wireless-access points on the Bloomington campus. When did Indiana University begin its wireless rollout?Įarly 2003. We're doing the residence halls last because the students already have connections. Wireless in residence halls hasn't been a high priority because every room has at least one data jack and all the common areas have data jacks. We've been looking at areas where students and faculty congregate and where wired access isn't possible.Īt some point, we may think we've got all the outside areas that matter covered, but then certainly there will be areas brought to our attention by faculty and students, and we'll have to go out and take a look. On the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses, about 85% to 90% of the outside areas that matter are covered by wireless. We have all of our administrative and academic buildings 100% covered by wireless, although we do identify dead spots periodically. ![]() Where does the wireless-access piece fit in?Īll over the place. When we install wireless, we want to make sure that the people who are using our wireless network are the people who are affiliated with Indiana University and should be allowed to use that resource. Identity management is a huge area for us. That number of 126,000 is going to grow as we take into consideration these peripheral relationships. We have students who are no longer enrolled but still have some continuing tie with the university, whether they owe a bursar bill or have incompletes. The number of users is getting higher because we're attempting to better serve our admitted students and even prospective students. We also have a category of "other users," such as contract programmers. That would include 98,000 to 99,000 students, 5,000 faculty and another 10,000 staff. We also run the statewide network that connects eight regional campuses to Indianapolis and to the outside world. We run the core network to all those buildings. ![]() We have about 3,000 acres of campus at Bloomington and 600 acres in Indianapolis. We have responsibility for the core campuses at Bloomington and Indianapolis. ![]()
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