Intel Ranks Colleges with Best Wireless Access 526
newdamage writes "Intel recently released it's ranking of The Most Unwired College Campuses and I was happy to see my school, Purdue, up there at #2. I can personally attest that my laptop w/ wireless card can be used over almost all of the main campus, and there's always a few people in lecture using laptops to access notes and take extra notes. Granted all I've found is that internet access in class just gives me a better way to not pay attention. What are other peoples' experiences with wireless access on their campus? Is there widespread coverage, and if so, does it help you get more school related work done by having your laptop connected where ever you are on campus?"
Man... (Score:2)
Re:Man... (Score:2, Funny)
MIT = 26? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:MIT = 26? (Score:5, Funny)
negative wording (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:negative wording (Score:5, Funny)
*blink* Oh, sorry. Marketing demons possessed me for a second.
Re:negative wording (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:negative wording (Score:5, Insightful)
Then when I reread the word, I had images of people ripping the wires out of student's walls and laughing. "Can't download music anymore now, PUNK!"
Really, wireless sounds so much better than unwired, as we've been hearing for so long that being "wired" is great (as in "connected"), but "wires" (as in "the cables you trip over") are bad. Silly Intel.
Re:negative wording (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't want to theorize on why we didn't make the list, but my guess is it's cuz we didn't use Intel. Eat me Intel. AMD for life!
Re:negative wording (Score:2)
What this means for prospective students (Score:5, Funny)
Also of interest (Score:5, Informative)
Also, do these lists just count wireless access points that Centrino supports? It almost sounds like some sort of propaganda...
Re:Also of interest (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, Stanford is 68th ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm kinda surprised that we don't have a higher rating, since almost all the main areas of campus are covered, as well as roughly half the undergraduate dorms. It makes me wonder how they're doing their calculations. If it's total coverage / campus size or something silly like that then I could understand 68th (since we have a 8000+ acre campus) -- if they're using some sensible measure
(and y
Re:Actually, Stanford is 68th ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Actually, Stanford is 68th ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Also of interest (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Also of interest (Score:3, Informative)
Have you tried to use Dragonfly (Drexel's wireless network)? Coverage is spotty as hell. Maybe if you're outside you can keep a stable connection, but I know I don't walk with my laptop out... get run over by one of those damn landscaping trucks driving through the quad.
I had 1 lecture where I could access the network, and that was in the CS building. My dorm I c
Huh? You confused... #33 is MY city no yours... (Score:2)
2 from Indiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:4, Interesting)
The Internet2/Abilene NOC is located in Indianapolis at IUPUI.
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:5, Interesting)
His problem was that they'd figured out that Napster's inefficient P2P was jamming up their network, so in self-defence the IUB network guys advised Napster on how to be a bit more efficient (and download yr song from the frat boy in the next room, instead of from some geek in Japan). Good technical move, bit of a legal problem.
Re:2 from Indiana? (Score:2)
On a side note, I go to Purdue and can attest that nearly every square foot of every building has wireless access. It really is very impressive.
Reminds me of a joke... (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a joke...
"Which way do I leave from?"
"Here at Harvard, we don't use prepositions to end our sentences."
"Alright. Which way do I leave from, asshole?"
(Purdue, thinking were better than the people who think they are better than us since 1869.)
My school made it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My school made it! (Score:2)
Such naivete is quite touching! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Such naivete is quite touching! (Score:2)
What's next (Score:5, Funny)
What the heck? (Score:2)
That hardly seems fair. . .
My University is misspelled (Score:3, Funny)
I've lived in misery (ahem: Missouri) all my life, and don't know of this college, though I do attend the University of Missouri-Columbia.
(Well, I pay them, anyway. I rarely _attend_.)
I'm not exactly loyal, but damnit, I want my crappy college spelled right!
Re:My University is misspelled (Score:2)
Check out this page [uark.edu]. There's a professor who apparently went to this university! And here's another professor [apa.org].
Finally I consulted the umsystem [umsystem.edu] web site it's self and proved me correct. But it's really odd that there's so many people refering to it as Columbus. I lived there for apx. 2 years (and went to coll
I always got too distra... eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I always got too distra... eh? (Score:3, Informative)
At Wake Forest University... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I have housing in the Technology Quarters, I had some experience with the wireless network which was installed here early, but it was only with a PDA and not a full laptop. My room had poor reception, and I couldn't get a signal in any interesting places (like outside on the sun roof or patio). I'm hoping that next year when there's more access points up my new dorm will have better reception, particularly in the nice courtyard area.
Oh, and the network looks unencrypted so far. Which means I'll be checking my email with Pine over ssh. =b
Alternate Article Title: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:At Wake Forest University... (Score:3, Insightful)
lucky punks (Score:5, Funny)
back in my day, if you wanted to download porn, you had to wait until your roommate left for class, and then search for it on usenet. and if you got a single download that wasn't corrupt, you'd consider yourself lucky! nowadays with bittorrent and kazaa, life is so easy. if i had wireless access campus-wide, i might have spent alot more time in the classroom (my apartment had the four of us on a single dialup connection).
Re:lucky punks (Score:2)
Isn't downloading porn intrinsically corrupt?
Re:lucky punks (Score:2)
I don't have a laptop... (Score:4, Interesting)
Colleges must be pretty lacking... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Colleges must be pretty lacking... (Score:2, Informative)
If U of I is only #33, I'd really like to see how good these other schools are. There is nothing like taking your laptop out on the lawn, and check your email and stuff.
Good/Bad (Score:2, Interesting)
Do these rankings bear any resemblance to reality? (Score:5, Interesting)
No surprise -- makers of lists like these don't usually attempt to apply any scientific methodology.
Re:Do these rankings bear any resemblance to reali (Score:3, Informative)
Good of bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have found that in class, all a laptop does is distract the students. Sure, we're supposed to follow along with the notes on our screens, but the prof can't see them. 90% of the time, everyone is surfing the web, talking on IM, checking their email, playing CS, basically everything but paying attention.
Further, most classes don't even require/use a laptop (it's pretty tough to take linear algebra notes on a computer). I estimate that maybe only 20% of classes or less use laptops actually IN class.
Most of the time when your laptop is required for class, it is just a pain to drag it to class, set it up, not use it for anything but to click through powerpoint slides. However, for the few professors who actually design the class with the use of the student's laptops in mind, it can be a great learning tool. It's nice doing in-class activities where you collect data and display it on your computer changing parameters to see the effect; or running simulations were you get to mess with the settings/initial conditions.
On the whole, I wished I could have saved a grand or so and purchased a desktop that could do the same as my laptop (after all, it spends all but 4 hours a week just sitting on my desk). For the, mmm, maybe 2 classes that the professor has actually incorperated the use of laptop into his lecture (same professor for both classes), it was a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, professors who know how to lecture well, especially incorperating a personal computer, are few and far between. An Unwired (or Wired) classroom can either be a great benefit, or a waste of time.
Re:Good of bad? (Score:2)
Tried LaTeX? If you mean the same thing by "linear algebra" as I do (vectors, vector spaces, linear maps, matrices) it shouldn't be too bad if your course is mostly abstract - abstract algebra with just Latin+Greek letters, superscripts and subscripts is trivial to do in LaTeX, although writing out vectors and matrices explicitly *is* a bit of a hassle. A vector:
\[
v = \left(\begin{array}{c}
1 \\
2 \\
3
\end{array}\right)
\]
A matrix:
\[
M = \left(\beg
Note Taking Considered Harmful (Score:2, Interesting)
Note taking is an evil distraction, that misleads you into the belief that you're actually getting something out of the lecture, while all you're really doing is taking dictation and not thinking about the bits pas
Re:Good of bad? (Score:2)
Wireless, overrated. (Score:2)
In a slightly offtopic topic, Wireless access points work surprisingly well on steel ships. The thick hull seems
Purdue's wi-fi (Score:2, Informative)
As long as I shut the damn thing off when I'm in class, it isn't too distracting. It's so fantastic to be able to get a burrito or whatever in the Union, sit, catch up on email, do research (with the purdue.edu IPs it's easy to get into the library's [purdue.edu] online journals and stuff), listen to Air America Radio's [airamericaradio.com] s
University of Michigan (Score:2)
I take all of my notes on my laptop, and I find it is better for test preparation than paper notes for me. In rooms where I've had network access I don't find it a distraction, but often I'll leave the network card out just to save power. Haven't been doing that recently since I my laptop supports two batteries at once and I
Oh Yeah? (Score:2)
Ranking Intel Campuses (Score:5, Interesting)
I've heard that at Intel your manager has to get you permission to use WiFi and your department must pay some sort of ongoing fees to some other group for the priviledge.
Re:Ranking Intel Campuses (Score:2)
Guelph-Humber (Score:2)
My university is at the bottom of the heap. (Score:5, Informative)
Our Network Services department, despite repeated requests from faculty and students, has not set up any sort of wireless coverage anywhere on campus. They also prohibit faculty and students from setting up their own wireless equipment, whether or not it is connected to their network. I am not permitted to put a wireless NIC in my desktop and have it talk to my laptop, even if neither machine is on the campus network.
(I figure that since I'm allowed to use a cordless telephone operating in the 2.4GHz band, Network Services has no right to dictate what other signals I generate in that band.)
Any Slashdotters who are pondering attending this university should think carefully about whether they are willing to accept the complete lack of wireless and consistent 15-25% packet loss on the dormitory connections. (People use dialup because it's more reliable.)
In contrast, a friend of mine in Washington University Law School frequently IM's me from class lamenting how boring class is. (How someone can be bored with a computer (with 3d card) and network access in front of them is left as an exercise to the reader.)
Pity it only covers U.S. Universities... (Score:2, Informative)
Here were I study [iu-bremen.de] in Germany we've got hotspots in almost every classroom and pretty much everybody has a laptop. This is because of the payment facilities given by the Uni (granted, they get sucky models and prices are not so cheap, but I won't get into this or I'll never end this post). Unfortunately few people really use their laptop in class for taking notes. Almost everybody else is using IM/surfing the net/watching movies (!!) during class. Regardless, using your laptop during a boring lecture is m
Pointless (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pointless (Score:5, Funny)
Were you the only student at LSU at the time?
Re:Pointless (Score:2)
Re:Pointless (Score:2)
Carnegie Mellon only #6? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm at a wired campus (Score:3, Interesting)
Not very accurate (Score:5, Informative)
K-State technically has wireless in some buildings, but not many. Yes, the library and union have wireless as do a few others, but that's where it ends. The biology and physics buildings both lack it entirely, as does the main building for the college of arts and sciences and only a large lecture hall in one of the main engineering buildings is listed as having it. Since it was installed I might have taken one or two courses that would have made it available to me. I don't have a wireless laptop myself (although my girlfriend does and I've been interested in how good the coverage is), but I doubt you'd be able to get online from anywhere outside on campus at all.
Essentially this is something they did about 2 years ago and then more or less have ignored ever since. The website for it lists that more locations will be coming, but in that time none ever have. IT out here is a joke though. Bandwidth in the dorms was so bad (i.e. >2k/sec) a few years back that almost every single student living in them had to sign a petition about it before we barely got some degree of improvement (up to maybe 10-20k/sec). The IT staff is frequently unreachable having locked themselves off in the library basement and rarely if ever respond to e-mail.
The presence of K-State on that list seems to indicate that the list compilers merely looked over webpages and cataloged the number of areas listed without any regard for the actual coverage provided.
Re:Not very accurate (Score:2)
Re:Not very accurate (Score:3, Interesting)
I think part of the discrepancy may be the shear size and layout of our campus--we are spread across many blocks of Manhattan where it's hard to get "full coverage" comp
Re:Not very accurate (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I don't remember signing a petition, but I do remember how on campus students were nearly monopolizing the internet pipe, such that the line was plateauing from 8 am to 8 pm. Since the implementation of p2p filtration this issue has largely vacated, and downloading from ocremix or debian updates typically move at 300 kpbs.
T
This is a major accomplishment for many schools (Score:2)
To add to the accomplishment, many buildings are older and made of cinder block (at least around where I live - College Park MD). 802.11 through concrete and/or cinder blocks is like trying to drive a Zamboni through a bog. The fact that any wireless penetrates buildings and reaches students in class is quite amazing imo.
Columbia (Score:2)
Pentium Floating Point Error strikes again (Score:2)
Intel(r) Products: MMost Unwired College Campuses Survey
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Does size matter? (Score:2)
Several of the schools on the list have comparitively small campuses; I noticed that neither of the two biggest universities in the US--Michigan State U. and Ohio State U.--made the list. If MSU, for example, offered sufficie
Wireless Security (Score:2, Informative)
I don't get it (Score:2)
Rochester Institute of Technology (Score:4, Interesting)
-dave
Meaningless (Score:2, Interesting)
Interesting, but... (Score:2)
Phew, made it (Score:2)
GVSU (Score:2)
However, we have an 18-hole golf course and plenty of outdoor athletics facilities, so that's a lot of on-campus space that isn't covered. I ima
UT Austin #3? Gotta be kidding (Score:3, Informative)
All the machines are on public IPs and there is no sort of virus scanning or update requirements at all. We accidentally put a fresh Windows install on the wireless network and got hit with a worm in 30 seconds. The network nazis, under orders of our joke of a security office, often filter DHCP addresses because of viruses, which is great until you accidentally get the lease for a filtered address.
UT just finally figured out that maybe they should offer SSL POP and IMAP on the central mailserver after having kids on unencrypted wireless for 3 years. VPNs are just now being looked at.
The worst thing about wireless at UT is it's so inconsistent. There aren't nearly enough APs in highly populated areas, meaning you get dialup speeds are not uncommon. There are dead spots everywhere because of poor AP placement.
We were doing a voice over wireless IP pilot, and it was impossible. Each building is on it's own VLAN and they don't route to each other. Some wireless systems are maintained by departments and you can't even log into them. We could communicate in our building, but the building across the street was blind. Even getting the phones to work, with UTs homebrewed authentication system, was a beast.
What an American List.. (Score:4, Funny)
Caltech (Score:3, Interesting)
So the problem with surveys is that they require people's time to respond. For example, when I was a frosh the Princeton Review or someone conducted an online survery and one of the questions was about workload/free time. Now, if you think about it there are likely to be some freaking brilliant people that will say that they have plenty of free time and the work load isn't hard. Meanwhile, the other 99% of us aren't bored enough to fill out the survery. As a result we were ranked really low on the workload that year. And believe me, this week was the first week I've ever had an easy problem set (it took only 3 hours).
So back to the topic, where is my school? We have wireless in most of the lecture halls and some of the newer classrooms. It's not great but its good for simple browsing/IM/e-mail. From the way that you describe the wirelesss there, I would think that Caltech should be higher than "not on the list." There is none as of yet in the houses (not frats, campus owned dorms, but cooler) but that is because they are old Faraday cages that are going to be rebuilt so current wireless is student owned access points. So why the institute doesn't provide them, I can walk from one side of my house to the other and have access the whole time, switching from AP to AP.
In other words, the wireless access here is good in my opinion and surveys are pretty crappy means of advertising.
-Scott
I'm not proud but... (Score:4, Informative)
My Wifi Use At GaTech (Score:3, Informative)
What I tend to use wireless for in class is runing experiments for class projects where I can communicate with other group members during class via AIM, additionally in another class I use it to do the individual projects, the use of the wireless here is that I run CVS on my desktop computer, and need access to it when I'm in class. It's a nice little system. As for my other class I usually just do work for the two previous classes in it and not really pay attention
Purdue's VP of IT just spoke to my class on Tues. (Score:5, Interesting)
... and I asked him about this very same topic. Funny, because he said "Have you seen the Intel article about the most wired college campuses?" Of course, I hadn't at the time and forgot to look it up. Then, bam, on Slashdot two days later.
I asked him to compare our setup and implementation to our peer universitites and he basically said that we were right at the top. We've had full coverage on campus for three semesters (counting back including this one). Before that they rolled it out over three semesters. So, it's been on campus for about 3 yrs now. Kinda cool.When ITAP (the IT services dept) decided to do it, they actually rolled together three other independant implementations from the School of Mgmt and a couple of other places. In addition to full campus coverage, now we even have wireless access at our footbal stadium (with a ton of money donated by Cisco and other companies) that can be used to access stats, etc. during the game - mostly from PDAs.
Funniest part of the story from the VP of IT was that when he told us that IU was number 1 on the list. Apparently, after Purdue had rolled out wireless across the campus (or was partly through implementation), IU called and asked how they did it and copied the setup. He said that they beat us on 'green space'. IU's physical campus is spread out over a larger area than Purdue's. IU covered the green space and nudged us out.
Airports? (Score:3, Informative)
I travel in and out of O'Hare regularly, and I'm not aware of any wireless service available to the unwashed. Perhaps wireless is available in the airline club lounges, but that hardly counts as "airport" access.
By contrast, I was in KC Mo last month, a much smaller airport than O'Hare, though with a very cool design in my opinion, and their wireless access was both publicly available, and clearly announced on their PA screens.
Re:Purdue (Score:2, Redundant)
Hell, I remember using FidoNet. And I'm really not that old. I wonder what this is all gonna look like in 20 years? If 10 years brings us as far as the last 10 has, i'm gonna be watching streaming HDTV on my cell phone.
Re:Purdue (Score:2, Interesting)
The Japanese already do. Granted, it's not streaming or HDTV... it's digital satellite direct to cell phones, and through repeaters in rural areas. 70 channels, though, and crystal clear.
If the next 10 years brings us as far as the last ten, the big thing will be something you don't have a worse version of now. My expectation is that MIThril type systems [mit.edu] will be hot in ten years, and that the stuff w
Re:RHIT (Score:2)
However, if you're ranking by wireless coverage, Rose-Hulman isn't going to be too far up there. They really only have a couple wireless access points in the main social areas. There really isn't a NEED for wireless access anywhere else, since practically every desk has had an Ethernet port since before wireless was practical. Plus, it's a small school: providing wireless access to tens of thousands of students is a
Re:AKA "Which Schools Recommend Centrino" (Score:2)
Re:AKA "Which Schools Recommend Centrino" (Score:4, Interesting)
For example Kettering University [kettering.edu], a small engineering school (interesting, we graduate more engineers than any other University, and 1 out of 5 graduates becomes a business owner or fortune 500 exec, but that's a side point) which has great, almost 100% coverage (I live two blocks away and get signal) isn't on the list because it's are so small (there are 5 buildings on campus).
you are unfamiliar with this new script language (Score:2, Insightful)
In this language "==" means "almost typical enough of a slashdot poster's jargon to elicit a sympathetic response to the political propaganda" which is a much more powerful operator than a simple assignment or test for equality.
Or something like that.
Re:Definitely bad for education... (Score:2, Insightful)
If the Prof is talking about something I need to know, I can put the lid of my laptop down and listen or use my laptop to take notes.
Just because there are a bunch of you who cannot control yourselves from playing CS or chatting doesn't mean everyone else who can use it to their benefit should lose out.
Re:Dartmouth (Score:3, Interesting)
Either you're a prof or you've gotten extremely lucky housing assignments.
We do have an assload of APs, though, and a lot of ground covered in theory. Probably makes for a strong ranking.
Of course, our wireless network is COMPLETELY unsecure here, too...as in, no WEP, no nothing. You know the SSID, you're on the networ