Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Article
A New Kind of Academic Freedom
4/19/2004
At Carnegie Mellon, which has had complete wireless coverage since 1998 based
on the 802.11b standard, Bartel says that the university is looking at next-generation
wireless technology for speed reasons, and experimenting with 802.11a and g
standards. "[802.11b] is now becoming a bit slow by today’s standards."
Proximity-Aware Devices
With hundreds or thousands of wireless access points in place and identified
to a central network, proximity-aware devices become a possibility. Such a device
can locate the carrier – such as a student or faculty carrying a PDA or
cell phone. At Carnegie Mellon, that means that software can enable students
to selectively let others know their location, find out where friends are, locate
a meeting or lecture, and so forth. Bartel gives examples of using such software
to schedule lunch or a study group with others based on their proximity, or
quickly plan a meeting based on where the members are at a given moment.
Wireless Voice Technologies
An initiative at Dartmouth that has gotten lots of attention is the college’s
move to voice over IP (VoIP) technology for telephone calls. The campus already
had made long distance calls from campus free, finding that was cheaper than administering
a complex billing system. Now, Levine says, "all new buildings have voice
over IP for phones" instead of traditional phones.
Among other things, voice over IP technology makes any computing device a phone—a
notebook computer or PDA, notably. A wireless laptop running a small software
application needs only a headset to become a wireless Internet telephone—usable
anywhere that he laptop can connect to the network. The move to VoIP opens new
possibilities, Levine points out, since voice, video and data can now converge,
allowing the user to mix voice with video and data, share party line conversations
on the fly, and much more. "It really is a phone," he says. "You
can call a campus extension or an outside line."
With campuses ready to experiment further with mobile devices and wireless networks, and vendors eager to work with them to test out new products, mobile computing is ripe for growth. Campuses like Dartmouth, the University of Minnesota, and Carnegie Mellon represent the cutting edge, but others won’t be far behind.
Linda Briggs is a freelance writer based in San Diego, Calif. She can be reached at lbriggs@lindabriggs.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Yuba Community College District Renews with AT&T for Wireless
Yuba Community College District (YCCD) has contracted with AT&T to provide wireless Internet access to the 11,000 students attending the district's two Northern California colleges, Yuba College in Marysville and Woodland Community College.
- Surveys Raise Doubts on Virtualization Security
Migration to virtualization won't be the quick transition that some technology evangelists have predicted, according to recent surveys by two IT security companies. Nor is virtualization as secure as many might want it to be.
- What Was Your First Pet's Name? Lessons Learned About E-Mail Security
The intrusion last month into Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail highlighted the frailty of some types of data security measures. What are the lessons for the rest of us?
- Report Casts Doubt on Anti-terrorism Tools
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences, part of which was co-authored by an Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington professor, casts doubt on the effectiveness, lawfulness, and appropriateness of using data-based tools such as data-mining and biometrics to fight terrorism.
- University in South Africa Set To Install Quantum Cryptography on Municipal Network
Physicists at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal are set to install a quantum communication security solution over the eThekwini Municipality fibre-optic network infrastructure in Durban.
- Cedarville U Sets Up SonicWall Firewalls
Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
