Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Sewanee Expands Wireless Network Across 10,000-Acre Campus
11/28/2007
With a sprawling campus of more than 10,000 acres and century-old buildings, the University of the South in Tennessee, also known as Sewanee, needed an expansive and flexible wireless solution to connect students, faculty, and members of the community. The school had been using a combination of wired and wireless systems to serve select portions of the campus; but in order to improve service and make wireless access available everywhere, Sewanee has initiated an overhaul using gear from Colubris Networks that will eventually bring 100 percent wireless access to the buildings on the campus.
Phase 1 Deployment
So far, Sewanee has deployed one Colubris MultiService Controller and about 70 Colubris wireless MultiService Access Points in the first phase of its overhaul, with plans for about 170 by the time of completion. The process involves replacing wireless gear from a prior vendor that has since gone out of business--a sort of backfilling approach as old gear gets removed and replaced with the new. The finished deployment will include not only academic buildings, administrative buildings, and residence halls, but access for visiting members of the community as well, with a total of about 90 buildings having complete wireless coverage.
Despite the scale of the operation, it is, essentially, a one-man show, with Geno Schlichting, communications specialist for the university, handling the deployment pretty much single-handedly, including research for the project, monitoring, management, and aspects of the physical deployment itself. Although he said Colubris has been providing technical support for the project, there are no subcontractors or other outside firms helping with the deployment.
"I'm the grunt," he told Campus Technology. "Colubris has been good with technical support, but [the equipment] is easy to set up."
The university is using two varieties of Colubris MultiService Access Points: the single-radio MAP-320 and dual-radio MAP-330. The dual-radio option, Schlichting said, is one of the reasons he decided to go with Colubris, since it provides a dedicated sensor for wireless intrusion detection and prevention, so performance doesn't have to be sacrificed for security. Schlichting said the Sewanee is also evaluating the Colubris RF Manager for additional security.
Full Implementation: Community Access and 802.11n
The "grunt" so far has the job about 60 percent completed and said he expects the project to be fully implemented within about three years, although planning and budgeting are still underway for portions of the project. There's still one major academic building to finish up before the end of the year, at which point, Schlichting said, further work will be done on administrative and support buildings, which have about 30 percent wireless coverage at this point, and residence halls, which have about 60 percent coverage as of this writing.
Recommended Reading
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
- The Quilt Coalition Rolls Out XO Communications for High-Capacity Network Services
The Quilt, a coalition of 28 regional network organizations, has added XO Communications Services to its authorized vendor list. The Quilt represents 200 universities and thousands of other educational institutions across the United States. With this new relationship, Quilt members can purchase XO's high-speed IP transit and network transport services at competitive rates.
- Wimba Classroom 5.2 Expands Classroom Capture Support, Adds MP3 Downloads
At the NECC 2008 conference in Texas this week, Wimba launched a new version of Wimba Classroom, the virtual classroom component of the company's Collaboration Suite. The new 5.2 release expands options for classroom capture and adds a variety of other functional and ease of use features.
- Automation Chimera: Education Is Not Management
The lure of automating workflow online so human intervention is minimized is continually reinforced in the minds of higher education administrators by examples of automated campus systems such as financials, student information systems, and other enterprise systems. But what's good for management is not always good for learning.
- Cognos Releases BI Software for Linux-based IBM System z Mainframe
Cognos, which IBM acquired in January, has released an update to its business intelligence software that will run on the Linux operating system on IBM System z mainframes. IBM Cognos 8 BI was being developed by the two companies prior to the acquisition, but assimilation of Cognos into IBM accelerated development.
- Facebook and Collegiality: A Serendipitous Social Niche
Facebook is a way to greet a colleague as if she or he is on your own campus: a wave at a distance, a hello at the corner burrito place, a honk as you both leave the campus parking lot. Informal collegiality has been extended over the miles.
