High-tech phones and streaming videos to student desktops may soon become reality as Dartmouth finishes the final stage of a multi-year update to its aging computer network.
The College is on the verge of completing a process that started eight years ago to upgrade its technology infrastructure in order to include some of the fastest available network connections.
Attempting the most seamless changeover possible to the new system, a team from Computer Services replaced much of the network hardware over spring break when students were not on campus.
With the upgrades, students using newer network cards -- like those included in recent Macintosh computers -- will be able to connect to the network at a speed of one gigabyte per second.
One gigabyte, equal to 1,000 megabytes, is about the size of 1,500 two-page Word documents or 350 MP3 song files.
Before the changes, students could download files at a theoretical maximum of 100 megabytes per second, though slower transfers were more common.
"You'd be really lucky if you ever got the advertised speed," said Bill Brawley, director of user communications at Computing Services.
Connections to the outside Internet sites will not necessarily be faster, Brawley warned, since other factors such as Internet congestion could limit the speed.
A network of single-mode fiber-optic cable, the same sort of cord that carries the nation's telephone traffic, serves as the basis for the new high-speed connections.
Laid originally in 1995 while other wiring work was underway, the College did not activate the high-speed cable until recently because Computer Services lacked the hardware to use it effectively.
"At the time, the electronics that would be cost-effective and mature enough to work on our network weren't ready," Brawley said.
The very first Dartmouth network was small, but in 1984 the College was one of the first universities to expand its Apple LocalTalk network to every dormitory and office on campus. That same year, 75 percent of Dartmouth students purchased computers, and in 1991 the faculty voted to require students to own a computer.
Some original network hardware still exists, but will be removed as part of the upgrade, Brawley said. Dartmouth has already replaced most of the old network hubs and routers with newer network switches.
Hubs, Brawley said, are very much like a power strip. "Plug in one end of it to an outlet, and six devices have to share that circuit."
Switches, on the other hand, add more "circuits," eliminating the need to share connections at all. Switches can also detect the speed of a network card and adjust accordingly.
Most of the changes take place behind the scenes, so many users may not notice the difference, Brawley said. Other changes will be completely invisible, such as improved administration by network managers.
In addition, the faster network might allow the adoption of "voice-over-IP" telephones, which use ethernet cables instead of phone cords to transmit phone conversations.
A streaming video service is also among proposed changes possible under the new system. The old network's slower speed did not allow the reliable delivery of high-quality video.
The upgrade of the network is about 80 percent complete, Brawley said. He said he expects it to be completed by June, when the final outlying buildings will be connected to the high-bandwidth web.
