Illinois not content to be a 'Top Wired College'

8/15/2007 Lauren Eichmann, ECE Illinois

Early this year, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign received recognition from PC Magazine, in partnership with The Princeton Review, as one of the top ten wired colleges in the nation. At sixth on a list of 20, the publication considers Illinois one of the "most connected, plugged-in, and high-tech campuses in the country."

Written by Lauren Eichmann, ECE Illinois

Early this year, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign received recognition from PC Magazine, in partnership with The Princeton Review, as one of the top ten wired colleges in the nation. At sixth on a list of 20, the publication considers Illinois one of the “most connected, plugged-in, and high-tech campuses in the country.”

A survey, which was given to 361 of what the The Princeton Review said were the best colleges in its 2007 edition, helped PC Magazine rank an individual university based on its technological offerings in each of three categories: academics, student resources, and infrastructure.

Although Illinois earned points for its distance learning program, students’ online storage capacity, and the availability to borrow technological equipment free of charge, the strength of the University’s wireless internet system proved notable. Illinois has nearly 120 wireless hot spots on campus and thousands of access points. Twelve new hot spots were installed within the past three months, said Mike Smeltzer, director of network communications for CITES.  

“The long-term goal is to have wall-to-wall coverage in all public areas,” he said. “But we’ve already done all the really big academic buildings.” Currently, 60 percent of classrooms have wireless; in the fall it will be closer to 70 percent of coverage. The University has already spent nearly $500,000 on wireless for interior public spaces this fiscal year, and expects to spend a similar amount by the end of June 2008, Smeltzer said.

“Internet is part of student life, it’s not going away. I think we’d be failing the students if we didn’t provide wireless internet in the classrooms,” he said. Creative solutions are also being discussed to provide wireless access to a residence hall in a pilot program to be implemented in fall 2008.

Presently, the Campus Network Upgrade Project, which began almost two and a half years ago and is scheduled for completion in 2010, is a $20-million University initiative to upgrade more than 260 campus buildings with the latest data networking technology. Ultimately, every campus building will have a “faster, more reliable and secure” network, according to a CITES progress report.   

Not only will the network be more secure, but wireless may provide users with remote safety in the future. Illinois is now upgrading its network system from Cisco Systems to Meru Networks. A single wireless access point traditionally supports 30 users, yet the new Meru system relieves interference and routes users to the best available access point. Each Meru access point can support 70 to 80 people.

This technology will prove especially remarkable with the configuration of new phones like the Apple iPhone, that may eventually be able to connect to access points around campus, said Smeltzer. Carriers will use the campus data network to continue calls in remote locations that would normally receive no signals. These phones would be called ‘dual-mode phones’ in that they would be able to make calls through the traditional cell towers, as well as through WiFi.

Smeltzer acknowledged you could potentially detect exactly where in a certain building the call was being made depending on the access point from which the call connected. “So 911 is pretty close to where you are,” he said. “This could be one of the best ways of keeping you safe.”

Homepage photo courtesy of Kaleev Leetaru.


Share this story

This story was published August 15, 2007.