The Budget Office is considering a $2.8 million upgrade of the College's computer network, which would dramatically increase the speed of electronic transmissions across campus.
The proposal involves converting Dartmouth's LocalTalk network to Ethernet, a system of wiring that allows for faster and more direct communication between computers.
A report submitted by Director of Computing Larry Levine to the Provost's Office in January calls for the first major upgrade of Dartmouth's network since it was installed 10 years ago.
Levine said the network, which links all dormitory rooms to the campus' mainframe and mail servers, would run "at worst three to four times faster and at best many tens of times faster," after the conversion.
Interim Provost Bruce Pipes said the proposal will be submitted to the Board of Trustees during its June meeting and that it will have a high priority. "The question is not if, but when," he said.
Levine said he hopes the rewiring of the dormitories and administrative buildings would take place during the 1995 fiscal year.
Levine said an increase in the power of computers on campus and a growing complexity of what people are doing with the network have slowed the system down.
Pipes said that although the network is not in danger of collapsing, it does need to be rewired within the next five years.
"Computer Services has done a remarkable job of maintaining capacity with a system, which by modern standards, is considered somewhat antiquated," Pipes said.
Levine said the new lines of Apple Macintosh computers are "driving the network much harder" and that more "sophisticated tasks" strain the network more.
Levine said the upgrade will replace the network's backbone - the main line that runs through campus - with a fiber-optic cable that allows information transfer at the speed of light.
