Wifi now available in all residence hall rooms

The Office of Residence Life and ResNet Office will roll out a new, pervasive wireless access service for students, staff and guests residing in the residence halls starting January 25. Using state-of-the-art technology, this new service provides comprehensive, high speed wireless access coverage throughout all 14 residence halls.

The new wifi service implementation was a $700,000 capital construction project which took nearly a year to complete in three phases.

The first phase included site surveys and wireless access coverage modeling to ensure that all areas had adequate coverage with acceptable signal strength.

The second phase was primarily comprised of building the new Ethernet infrastructure to support the new wireless network. More than 300 new wireless access points were installed, providing service in nearly every area of each of the buildings. The ResNet team assisted with the installation of more than 400 new CAT6 Ethernet data ports, 75 new POE network switches and 4 new servers.

The final phase included several months of performance testing, during which nearly 1,000 students used the new service during the Fall semester, and yielded much positive feedback.

This new wireless service is unique in many ways and sets SUNY Fredonia apart from other SUNY campuses, most of which do not offer wireless access within their individual residential hall rooms. This gives Fredonia a distinct competitive advantage by making our on-campus housing more attractive to potential students.

Fortunately, technology has evolved to the point where it is now possible to deploy a wireless network that can meet the performance and security challenges at a reasonable cost. This is one significant and unique characteristic of this new wireless access service since the access points use Meru's 802.11n MIMO [multiple input-multiple output] antenna technology. This allows the access point to have a larger 'footprint' and gives increased coverage without dead spots. Essentially, we can use fewer access points, edge ports and energy than with older technology, and they easily handle the high density of student wireless use in the residence halls.

Throughout the implementation of this service there were a number of unique issues related to the deployment of wireless access, specifically in residence halls, that had to be considered. These unique concerns included wireless security related to student owned wireless rogue devices; construction material limitations found in cinderblock with aluminum which do not lend themselves to propagating wireless signals; and student owned microwaves and 2.4 GHz cordless phones can cause some minor issues as well.

This new wireless access would not have been possible without the support of Dr. David Herman, Vice President of Student Affairs; Tracy S. Bennett, Vice President of Administration; ITS Data Communications; Residence Life and ResNet Office staff; as well as the students that reside in the residence halls.

Students, staff and guests can obtain more information regarding the new residential wireless service by visiting the ResNet Office website at www.fredonia.edu/resnet.