Dartmouth students will be able to access the World Wide Web, search the Online Library and check their BlitzMail accounts via a wireless Ethernet connection by the end of the calendar year, according to Computing Services.
Access points will be installed in popular student areas around campus -- including the Collis Center, the 1902 Room, Silsby hall, the Top of the Hopkins Center and eventually the Green. The access points, which broadcast Ethernet signals, will allow between 25 and 50 computers to log into the Dartmouth network within one area.
To pick up the signal, students will need to purchase a $100 Personal Computer card, which can be inserted into either Macintosh or Windows laptops. Along with the software that comes with them, the PC cards pick up the Ethernet signals once inserted into a laptop.
With the exception of very old models, the PC cards are compatible with virtually all laptops.
"Eventually, we'd like the entire campus to be covered," Director of Computing Services Larry Levine said. "It's very underwhelming -- it's easy to install and easy to use."
According to Levine, the decision to offer the wireless service coincided with a drop in its market price.
"As we watched the wireless networking world reach a point where it was practical to do this, we wanted to offer it," he said.
Indeed, the service is becoming increasingly widespread. Late last month, Princeton University implemented a pilot program that provides six wireless Ethernet cards for students to borrow from the library.
A wireless access point has already been installed in the first floor of Kiewit. Its dependability helped encourage Computing Services to make campus-wide plans.
Levine said that the wireless access speed is compatible to that of a standard connection. But as with cellular phones, he said, the wireless connection could be disturbed by moving objects outside or the number of people in the vicinity of an access point.
"It's a way of augmenting a physical, wired network," Levine explained.
Each access point will cost around $1,500 to install, and will be absorbed by the Computing Services budget.
"In Dartmouth's large scheme of things, it's not a lot of money," said Punch Taylor, Director of Technical Services.
Taylor also said that he expects the price to drop as competition increases for the technology.
Levine said in the future new network security issues may also emerge.
"When wireless becomes more commonplace, we probably will consider a validation scheme that will require a password because we don't want people from anywhere in the world to be able to access it from a place like the Green," he said.
