Miami Student

Issue date: 2/8/08 Section: Campus

First-year Kelly Fryberger uses the upgraded wireless system in Dorsey Hall. Remaining residence halls upgrades began Feb. 4.

Miami University's wireless network has been described as slow, inconsistent and unreliable. However new system upgrades are being installed by Information Technology (IT) Services, hoping to make Miami's wireless network faster, better protected and smarter.

IT Services is currently in the process of upgrading the wireless service in Miami's residence halls, a job they aim to complete by spring break.

The upgrade will change current wireless access points to what IT Services calls "smart access points," according to Cathy McVey, director of customer relations and communications for IT Services.

Smart access points can sense when they're connected to too many users, and then re-route signals to other access points so that Internet connections won't be lost or unavailable, McVey explained.

She said the new system also evens out the quality of wireless service, detects unauthorized devices or interferences and reports them to IT Support.

"Basically (the new system) is a lot more intelligent," said Chris Bernard, director of network engineering and telecommunications.

According to first-year Michael Santangelo, this upgrade is necessary as the current state of the wireless network is simply annoying.

"It's really slow and incredibly inconsistent," he said.

The first buildings-King Library and Ogden, Dorsey, Havighurst and Hahne halls-were converted to the new system over Winter Break.

The upgrades went smoothly as expected, according to McVey, and IT Services began work on the remaining residence halls Feb. 4.

Santagelo's residence hall, Dennison Hall, was one of the first to be upgraded.

"I have friends who were complaining about the connection (on Feb. 4)," Santangelo said. "I haven't really noticed a difference."

Installing the new system's software in a building requires a wireless Internet outage around 30-minutes long.

"(This) is why upgrades are scheduled between 6 and 10 a.m. because it's the lowest time for Internet traffic," McVey said.

Funding for the $60,000 upgrading project will come from IT Service's annual budget, Bernard explained.

He added that though IT Services is constantly spending money on improvements and additions to the wireless system, this is the first major upgrade of infrastructure since Miami's wireless Internet was installed in 2004.

As of today, 24 buildings and one-third of the 3,300 daily wireless networks are connected to the new system, according to Bernard.

"That's why we upgraded King Library and the residence halls first," Bernard said. "We went after the bigger buildings, with the most people."

According to McVey, the rest of Oxford campus buildings will be converted after spring break through early summer.

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