Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Ex: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] neighbors 'jamming' 2.4GHz spectrum

[Hall, Rand]

I am not a lawyer nor a law enforcement officer so I encourage people to
consult one for situations like this.

That said, experience suggests to me that it would indeed be legal to
prohibit the use of interfering devices on campus (network connected or
not) by campus community members who are contractually bound to campus
policy. Similar examples on most campuses would include tobacco and
marijuana use and possessing weapons of various sorts.

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein


On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 7:08 PM Paul B. Henson  wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 28, 2020 at 06:02:01PM +, David Pifer wrote:
> > We have a standard as follows “Personal wireless access points,
> > network switches, and routers are not permitted on campus as they can
> > interfere with the functioning of the campus network.”
>
> Hmm... By this do you mean "are not permitted to be connected to the
> campus network"? Cause if somebody's got a wifi router connected to a
> cell phone data network you can't legally tell them they can't use it...
> Whether it's on the same channel as your wifi or not.
>
> --
> Paul B. Henson  |  (909) 979-6361  |  http://www.cpp.edu/~henson/
> Operating Systems and Network Analyst  |  hen...@cpp.edu
> California State Polytechnic University  |  Pomona CA 91768
>
> **
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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Android Rogue Hunting App

[Hall, Rand]

This is not a novel idea, but your torso attenuates enough signal to make a
good "opposite" directional antenna. Hold the device close to your chest
and do a slow 360.

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein


On Sun, Jan 26, 2020 at 8:54 PM Letts, Richard J  wrote:

> FYI
>
>
>
> In order for an application to do WIFI scanning in Android 10 You have to
> turn on Location Permissions
>
> Specific details here:
>
> https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/connectivity/wifi-scan
>
>
>
>
>
> (I use Wifi analyser on android 10. It works OK, but it’s not a quality
> tool for locating rogues. Something with a directional antenna would do a
> lot better)
>
>
>
>
>
> Richard Letts
>
>
>
> *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> *On Behalf Of *Walter Reynolds
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 8, 2020 3:20 PM
> *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Android Rogue Hunting App
>
>
>
>
> It looks like it was started in Android 9 but there is supposed to be a
> toggle in Developer options called "Wi-Fi scan throttling" to disable it
> on Android 10.
>
>
>
> So ignore the man behind the curtain.
>
> 
>
> Walter Reynolds
> Network Architect
> Information and Technology Services
> University of Michigan
> (734) 615-9438
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 3:05 PM Walter Reynolds  wrote:
>
> I will try to find the reference, but I think Android changes are
> preventing use of tools like this starting with Android 10
>
>
>
> 
>
> Walter Reynolds
> Network Architect
> Information and Technology Services
> University of Michigan
> (734) 615-9438
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 2:06 PM Gray, Sean  wrote:
>
> Happy New Year to all you happy wi-fi people!
>
>
>
> Does anyone have any Android software products they recommend for Rogue
> hunting? Unfortunately Ekahau Mobile Survey (EMS) has been canned, so we
> are looking for alternatives to put to use on an Android tablet. Ideally it
> should be something simple to use, that allows non-technical users to
> quickly narrow down the location of rogues.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Sean
>
>
>
> *Sean Gray* | B.Sc (Hons)
>
> Voice, Collaboration & Wireless Network Analyst
>
> ITS, University of Lethbridge
>
>
>
> **
> Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire
> community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the
> message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply.
> Additional participation and subscription information can be found at
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>
> **
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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Android Rogue Hunting App

[Hall, Rand]

We've had great success with Wifi Analyzer
.
It has a great beeping "geiger counter" feature that scares kids as you're
roaming the hallways :-)

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein


On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 1:43 PM Gray, Sean  wrote:

> Happy New Year to all you happy wi-fi people!
>
>
>
> Does anyone have any Android software products they recommend for Rogue
> hunting? Unfortunately Ekahau Mobile Survey (EMS) has been canned, so we
> are looking for alternatives to put to use on an Android tablet. Ideally it
> should be something simple to use, that allows non-technical users to
> quickly narrow down the location of rogues.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Sean
>
>
>
> *Sean Gray* | B.Sc (Hons)
>
> Voice, Collaboration & Wireless Network Analyst
>
> ITS, University of Lethbridge
>
>
>
> **
> Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire
> community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the
> message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply.
> Additional participation and subscription information can be found at
> https://www.educause.edu/community
>

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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Performance improvements from hallway to in-room

[Hall, Rand]

Random data point: we replaced 375 dorm APs this summer and 3 had tape over
the LED

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein


On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 5:53 PM Hunter Fuller  wrote:

> Sometimes I wonder if we're the only campus that doesn't get that type
> of thing. We used to have a few "can you turn off this LED" before we
> just turned all of them off by default.
>
> --
> Hunter Fuller
> Router Jockey
> VBH Annex B-5
> +1 256 824 5331
>
> Office of Information Technology
> The University of Alabama in Huntsville
> Network Engineering
>
> On Thu, Sep 5, 2019 at 3:26 PM Christopher Brizzell
> <0113a07d9d59-dmarc-requ...@listserv.educause.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Just be ready for some amount of backlash from an angry/ignorant parent.
> Every year (including yesterday) we have parents contact us saying we
> needed to remove all APs from bedrooms because of the health risk to the
> students living in those spaces.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thank you for the information, however. Any amount of proof to help
> solidify our decision helps.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Chris Brizzell
> >
> > Assistant Director of Network and Technical Services and Network
> Administrator
> >
> > Skidmore College
> >
> > cbriz...@skidmore.edu
> >
> > 518-580-5994
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Community Group Listserv <
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> On Behalf Of Turner, Ryan H
> > Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 1:43 PM
> > To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
> > Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] Performance improvements from hallway to in-room
> >
> >
> >
> > All:
> >
> >
> >
> > We all know that moving from hallway deployments to in-room deployments
> pays dividends.  This summer we started doing some re-cabling work on
> smaller dorms to move from hallway to in-room.   We also went away from
> Aruba higher performance APs to the hospitality APs for these locations.
> Even though the AP cost is significantly less, the cabling costs made this
> move a premium option.  Nonetheless, thanks to data provided to us from
> Nyansa Voyance, we are able to clearly demonstrate to Housing that these
> funds were well spent.  After the changes, these dorms went from some of
> the worst performing locations on campus to some of the best.  When you
> look at the graphs below, the Y axis is percentage of users that are
> affected by poor wifi performance (I believe Nyansa measures this as
> clients that experience a 25% retransmit rate from the AP to client).  With
> Nyansa, it determines behavior on usage level.  So when you see the dashed
> line, it means that usage was below or above the threshold during that time
> frame.  I picked the usage level that would show the most complete picture,
> but going from low/medium/high all show the same improvement levels.
> >
> >
> >
> > Carmichael:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Lewis:
> >
> >
> >
> > Everett:
> >
> >
> >
> > Ryan Turner
> >
> > Head of Networking
> >
> > The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
> >
> > +1 919 445 0113 Office
> >
> > +1 919 274 7926 Mobile
> >
> > r...@unc.edu
> >
> >
> >
> > **
> > Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire
> community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the
> message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply.
> Additional participation and subscription information can be found at
> https://www.educause.edu/community
> >
> > **
> > Replies to EDUCAUSE Community Group emails are sent to the entire
> community list. If you want to reply only to the person who sent the
> message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply.
> Additional participation and subscription information can be found at
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>
> **
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> message, copy and paste their email address and forward the email reply.
> Additional participation and subscription information can be found at
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>

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Hotpots in the age of unlimited data plans

[Hall, Rand]

So, is anyone else getting killed by hotspot interference?

Last year was so pleasant! Most clients moved to 5Ghz (away from
interfering 2.4Ghz printers). Now interference is back in the form of
iPhone hotspots. I bet 2-3% of the iPhones on our campus are hot.

...a bunch of Mrs. O'Leary's cows wandering around. More challenging game
than printers...

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

**
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group 
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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] 2.4GHz - educating end users about interference

[Hall, Rand]

My primary use for this would be to calm down the haters. I'd put it on the
support website and when we can document an interference problem direct
impacted parties to it.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Wed, Feb 22, 2017 at 3:09 PM, Peter P Morrissey  wrote:

> Me too. Nicely formatted, great graphics, clearly written. Just wondering
> how this would/could be used. Having a hard time imagining most or any
> users having enough interest to read the second line of this, never mind
> the second page, given everything else they are barraged with these days.
>
>
>
> Pete Morrissey
>
>
>
> *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Coehoorn, Joel
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 22, 2017 10:30 AM
> *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] 2.4GHz - educating end users about
> interference
>
>
>
> I love the 2nd page with the colored chart and diagram.
>
>
>
>
> Joel Coehoorn
> Director of Information Technology
> 402.363.5603 <(402)%20363-5603>
> *jcoeho...@york.edu *
>
> The mission of York College is to transform lives through
> Christ-centered education and to equip students for lifelong service to
> God, family, and society
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 10:24 AM, Walter Reynolds  wrote:
>
> This is a link to a pdf of what we came up with.
>
>
>
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0BKRE3DeEPKb1RWc1BPSkljYUtJZ
> jRGel9icmU3NklJRHRv/view
>
>
>
> If the link does not allow you to see it I am attaching the file as well.
>
>
>
>
> 
>
> Walter Reynolds
>
> Principal Systems Security Development Engineer
> Information and Technology Services
> University of Michigan
> (734) 615-9438
>
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 11:02 AM, Michael Hulko  wrote:
>
> Netscout.. aka Fluke… aka Airmagnet wrote a pretty easy to understand
> document related to interference.
>
>
>
>
>
> M
>
>
>
> On Feb 17, 2017, at 10:44 AM, Jeffrey D. Sessler  > wrote:
>
>
>
> You are fighting a battle that will never be won, and even a stale-mate is
> unlikely.
>
>
>
> IMHO, your best bet is to work toward abandoning 2.4. In the early days,
> we did try outreach and education, but there are just too many devices
> today that use 2.4, and in many cases, users don’t even know it e.g.
> Apple’s Airdrop. You can minimize some of this by solving the reasons
> behind some of the interference sources i.e. install more WAPs to improve
> the service, reducing the rogue problem. Install residential printers to
> mitigate the need for student printers.
>
>
>
> Most of our residential is now designed around dense 5 GHz, and while 2.4
> is available, it’s mostly ignored.
>
>
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
> *From: *"wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu"  EDUCAUSE.EDU > on behalf of "Gray,
> Sean" >
> *Reply-To: *"wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu"  EDUCAUSE.EDU >
> *Date: *Thursday, February 16, 2017 at 2:21 PM
> *To: *"wireless-lan@listserv.educause.edu"  EDUCAUSE.EDU >
> *Subject: *[WIRELESS-LAN] 2.4GHz - educating end users about interference
>
>
>
> Hi Fellow Wireless Wizards!
>
>
>
> This is my first post to the group, so please be gentle.
>
>
>
> Here at the University of Lethbridge we are about to embark on a bit of an
> education drive for all of our wireless users with regards to the 2.4GHz
> spectrum and their impact on it. Does anybody have good examples of
> notices, posters etc. that they would be willing to share, that reference
> the evils of rogues and other interference sources citing the negative
> impact they have on the wireless network. Like everyone else on this list
> we are seeing huge influxes of our friends the wireless printer, Bluetooth
> devices and the like…
>
>
>
> if only we could just turn 2.4GHz off.
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Sean
>
>
>
>
>
> *Sean Gray* | B.Sc (Hons)
>
> Voice, Collaboration & Wireless Network Analyst
>
> ITS, University of Lethbridge
>
>
>
>
>
> ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
> Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/
> discuss.
>
> ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
> Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/
> discuss.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Michael Hulko
> Network Analyst
>
> Western University Canada
> Network Operations Centre
> Information Technology Services
> 1393 Western Road, SSB 3300CC
> 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cloud managed infrastructure

[Hall, Rand]

Lee's is about as good an analysis as you can get:

"Put another less cynical way, the cloud stuff works well when IT resources
(or patience) are thin as it takes a few major headaches out of the
equation. But there is no free lunch- the hidden costs of cloud managed is
less features (this is good and bad IMO), less visibility down deep in the
individual pieces, and as you are hinting at… a leap of faith on trusting
the cloud."

We've run a 700 AP cloud-based deployment for 5 years with just one minor
cloud problem early on that lasted a couple of hours with minimal practical
impact. This is much better uptime than I can provide botching maintenance
now and then.



Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 1:03 PM, Lee H Badman  wrote:

> To add a bit to Sam’s input- running both on prem and cloud systems makes
> me thoroughly appreciate that on the cloud side, someone else is on the
> hook for care and feeding of things like the management system and the
> “cloud controller” or the “no controller” or whatever each vendor wants to
> call their magic. If the premise versions weren’t too-frequently
> bug-ridden, it may be a different story. But spending copious amounts of
> time keeping up system building blocks through their code issues makes you
> appreciate the cloud versions that just generally work.
>
>
>
> Put another less cynical way, the cloud stuff works well when IT resources
> (or patience) are thin as it takes a few major headaches out of the
> equation. But there is no free lunch- the hidden costs of cloud managed is
> less features (this is good and bad IMO), less visibility down deep in the
> individual pieces, and as you are hinting at… a leap of faith on trusting
> the cloud. I’ve been cloudy for almost 7 years at a number of small sites,
> and in each case it was absolutely the right choice.
>
>
>
> But all cloud-managed systems aren’t equivalent either- my advice is to
> unequivocally trial anything that you might purchase and make sure it fits
> what you need, the way you need it.
>
>
>
> *Lee Badman* | CWNE #200 | Network Architect
>
> Information Technology Services
> 206 Machinery Hall
> 120 Smith Drive
> Syracuse, New York 13244
>
> *t* 315.443.3003 <(315)%20443-3003>  * f* 315.443.4325 <(315)%20443-4325>
> *e* lhbad...@syr.edu *w* its.syr.edu
>
> *SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY*
> syr.edu
>
>
>
> *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Samuel Clements
> *Sent:* Friday, January 13, 2017 12:19 PM
> *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cloud managed infrastructure
>
>
>
> Disclaimer, I work for a VAR.
>
>
>
> Having said that, my personal opinion is that there is always a specific
> time and a place for your control plane and that's really the
> consideration. In situations where you have sites that would require low
> compute (typically smaller sites) that would be appropriate for Aruba
> Instant for example, those would be ripe for considering moving control
> plane to the cloud. Of course the big name in that space is Meraki and they
> have an awesome page over at http://meraki.com/trust - but there is a ton
> of space to consider private cloud options (in Azure/AWS for instance) with
> 'real Cisco', Aruba, Ruckus, etc - all having virtual WLCs that can play in
> those spaces. If your goal is to remove on-premises gear, in those
> situations where the architecture makes sense, there are tons of not only
> public cloud offerings (that come with their own OpEx considerations) as
> well as private cloud options that generally fit in your already preferred
> vendor-of-choice. This makes things like code-qualification, support,
> purchase discounts, hardware investment all become less of a challenge when
> you abstract out the architecture from your existing platforms today. Said
> differently, if vendor-lock in is important for your consideration, many of
> your existing APs today can be moved to the Cloud - which is of course just
> a fancy word for someone else's computer. :)
>
>
>
> It's still a touch on the nascent side in my opinion, but it's one that,
> for smaller sites, makes sense in a lot of environments.
>
>   -Sam
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 10:57 AM, Dexter Caldwell <
> dexter.caldw...@furman.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi Everyone,
>
> I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts, concerns about
> cloud-managed AP’s, or other infrastructure devices.  Specifically do you
> have security concern?  Have any of you implemented any such solutions and
> which management model do you prefer.
>
>
>
>
>
> Dexter Caldwell
>
> Dir. Systems & Networks
>
> Furman University
>
> dexter.caldw...@furman.edu
>
>
>
> 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco LWAP Advice

[Hall, Rand]

+1 Meraki

We just broke 700 APs and have had very few problems over 5 years--none of
them show-stoppers. Lee's got it right, test drive everything. If you want
knobs and reporting go somewhere else. If you want hands-off manageability
look at Meraki.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 2:36 PM, Steve Bohrer 
wrote:

> Meraki generally works well at my previous site, Simon's Rock, though
> Simon's Rock is very small, 125  APs. However, when things have problems,
> you don't get much info from Meraki's event reporting system. Examples:
>
> When we first switched to Meraki had APs that were losing connectivity due
> to a STP issue, and had no indication from the system until I opened a
> ticket asking about a student who lost connectivity from two devices at
> once. When the Meraki tech looked at their internal secret logs, they could
> tell me that the AP was losing upstream connectivity regularly for
> 30-second intervals.
>
> Similarly, a recent case seems perhaps to be a firmware issue with our
> older MR-16 APs. I gave a bunch of APs static addresses rather than DHCP so
> that I could ping them frequently, and found many of the APs were
> apparently losing connectivity for many short bursts throughout the day.
> The only Meraki Dashboard indication of the issue was that some APs showed
> a yellow line on their "Connectivity" bar on their AP Status page. Not
> exactly automatic reporting.
>
> Even something as simple as the APs logging when they lose upstream
> connectivity to their gateway, and when they reboot would be helpful, but
> Meraki seems to keep most trouble-shooting hidden.
>
> But, as Lee says, really nice when they are working well.
>
> Steve Bohrer
> Previously: Network Admin, Bard College at Simon's Rock
> 
> From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv <
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU> on behalf of John Rodkey <
> rod...@westmont.edu>
> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 2:09 PM
> To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco LWAP Advice
>
> I would echo Lee's observations.  Being an early adopter, Westmont had its
> share of teething pains, but the benefits of Meraki managing the back-end
> server are considerable.  Our wireless deployment isn't massive: about 300
> WAPs, and typically about 3000 devices attaching per day, and I'm sure we
> aren't cutting edge speed everywhere, but it generally 'just works', and
> takes fairly low management effort.
>
>
> John
>
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2015 at 10:46 AM, Lee H Badman > wrote:
> I use both- and have a real fondness for Meraki. Cisco vs Meraki is not
> just Apples to Apples on hardware. With Meraki, the perpetual controller
> and NMS bugs are no longer your problem, and it’s liberating beyond belief
> to not have to deal with that. I might feel different if Cisco got their
> WLAN code act together, but I’ve heard 10 years of admissions and promises
> and have yet to see it happen. Escalation builds, engineering builds, blah
> blah blah. There is a high TCO to Cisco wireless beyond the price tags.
> That’s the cost of seeing a bazillion features exposed that you may never
> use.
>
> In our Meraki sites, things work, they work well, and troubles tend to be
> statistical zero. Meraki APs never win bake-offs for high performance, but
> most well-designed environments don’t need rocket ships bolted to the
> ceiling either. System administration is an absolute breeze, in my years of
> running these environmnets.
>
> My guidance- carefully define your requirements and staffing, TRY BEFORE
> YOU BY in all cases, and query others that have gone before you in
> legitimate production.
>
>
>
> Lee Badman | Network Architect
> Information Technology Services
> 206 Machinery Hall
> 120 Smith Drive
> Syracuse, New York 13244
> t 315.443.3003   f 315.443.4325   e
> lhbad...@syr.edu w its.syr.edu >
> SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
> syr.edu
>
> From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
> WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>] On Behalf Of Jeffrey D. Sessler
> Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 12:07 PM
>
> To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU>
> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Cisco LWAP Advice
>
> I’ve looked at Meraki and it seems positioned at small installations, and
> once you get to a certain number of AP’s, the conventional Cisco-based
> controller (or similar vendor solution) comes our far less expensive.
>
> For smartnet, you can realize significant additional savings over and
> above the standard 30% EDU discount if you sign up 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] AW: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless) service, or not to provide (wireless) service...

[Hall, Rand]

Brian,

All I'm seeing is a suggested solution--use cellular rather than 802.11.
Have you been given a problem statement? That is, what problem is being
solved by using cellular?

Carrier X caught the ear of someone here a few years ago and we went
through this exercise. Like you, I immediately knew it was a bad idea. I
explained some of the major drawbacks but quickly realized that there was
some serious mesmerization going on and backed off. Sometimes you need to
stop trying to take the shovel away. You get to the bottom of the hole
faster.

Carrier X came in with their plan. We said, Oh, that was way more
expensive than we thought. Never mind.

Good luck!



Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Brian Helman bhel...@salemstate.edu
wrote:

  I have a little more information to provide now.  I absolutely
 appreciate that it will be extremely tempting to respond with biased
 opinions.  I don’t think there is anything that can be said that I haven’t
 already expressed to my team.  However, that will not help me write up my
 recommendation.  So that being said, feel free to chime in with tangible
 reasons to do this or not…



 Apparently, our president heard that some schools are investigating
 purchasing bulk data contracts with mobile (“cellular”) carriers for data.
 The idea is, we would stop providing 802.11g/n/ac wireless in the residence
 halls and instead provide students with the abilities to register their
 devices with the mobile carrier to use 4G/LTE data.  The University will
 pay for this.



 Pros:

 No wireless (802.11) to purchase, support

 Reduced POE requirements on switches

 No wireless driver/configuration mismatches problems to support



 Cons:

 Is mobile wireless signal available everywhere inside the buildings?
 Costs to improve signal.

 What speeds are available (what range of speeds)?  Is it by user or
 aggregate?

 How is congestion handled?

 What devices – mobile phones only?  Hotspots to provide access to
 non-cellular devices (e.g wifi-only tablets; laptops)

 More Ethernet ports needed for devices that previously depended on wireless

 What provider(s)?

 Support shifted from “device to institutional wifi” to “device to myfi” or
 “devide to 3rd party”

 Cost per user, per GB?



 What else?



 If you know of any institutions who have attempted this (I have heard MIT
 is looking at it, but we aren’t MIT), please let me know.



 By the way, the background here is .. we installed our 802.11n network ~5
 years ago and haven’t had any commitment to fund it since.  So now we are
 trying to deal with capacity (BYOD) issues that didn’t exist 5 years ago
 while upgrading to 11ac.  Of course, it’s not a 1:1 swap of equipment since
 we’d be migrating from 2.4GHz to 2.4+5GHz.  That puts the costs for
 forklift upgrades pretty high (did I mention I’ve been unsuccessfully
 asking for funding for 3 years?).



 I believe this can all best be summarized with a simple .. Oy.



 -Brian











 *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Jerkan, Kristijan
 *Sent:* Sunday, May 03, 2015 12:34 PM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* [WIRELESS-LAN] AW: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless)
 service, or not to provide (wireless) service...



 As a public institution in the EDU sector we always had a byod policy in
 our dorm network, specifically including „anything You want to connect to
 the port in Your room“.



 Parameters:

 -5k+ dorm rooms (1.8k the largest segment, 20 the smallest)

 -120km radius

 -at least one (mostly two) RJ45 port per room (cat5-7 to the switch, fiber
 afterwards)

 -10/100MBit ports (deliberatly did not go for 1GBit at the edge)

 -no additional accounting, just dhcp with opt82

 -public ips behind reflexive acl (no shaping, etc.)

 -uplink via the federal research network

 -service neutral (whoever wants to can use a DSL provider also/instead and
 may use the inhouse cable from their basement to their room for it)

 -one service number (fixed number, forwarded to five cellphones – whoever
 picks up first wins)

 -managed by ~10 students (pro bono, but with a couple of incentives)



 That beeing said, here are a few points why this works for us and is not
 generally applicable:

 -people have to work together to archive common goals (state, local,
 university and dorm administration – technical and administrative staff)

 -it does not take much to put a service neutral CAT cable into every room
 while they are beeing built/renovated instead of a cheaper telephone cable,
 but it does take a joint effort and common goals

 -to every dorm room there is a rent/contract, so we know who is „behind“
 it and can make one 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Evaluation

[Hall, Rand]

 I had more user connectivity complaints with the new system
 than we’d ever had with the old gear

I might attribute that to band steering. Dual-band clients in older lightly
covered areas will suffer.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 8:15 PM, Steve Bohrer skboh...@simons-rock.edu
wrote:

 Hi Jeremy,

 Sorry to be so late to reply to this thread. We replaced a near-EOL and
 at-capacity Cisco WLC/WCS system with Meraki last January. We’ve had a few
 bumps, but things mostly work. We are a very small college, so our full
 system is just 110 APs. We went with the 2x2 MR16s, but have upgraded a few
 to their 3x3 MR34s. The MR16 is now replaced by the MR18, which seems like
 a good thing, though I’ve not tried any of them yet. These newer APs have
 an “extra” radio for rogue and noise monitoring, so you get more
 information about your airspace.

 One thing I’d recommend is: have a site survey done, and deploy the
 recommended APs exactly where Meraki thinks you should. In our case, we
 replaced our 75 old Cisco 1131AG APs, and also added 35 new ones to expand
 coverage in three dorms. Thus, for the bulk of our deployment, location was
 not really an option, as the new APs were mounted right were the existing
 APs had been. I sorta figured that the new Meraki stuff would do at least
 as well as the ~8 year old stuff we were replacing, but this was not always
 the case, and I had more user connectivity complaints with the new system
 than we’d ever had with the old gear. Several times, when I opened tickets
 for help, the Meraki tech replied with, “Did you do a site survey?”, which
 we had not. From this, I’m thinking that their gear does really well in an
 ideal deployment, but maybe is not so good at making the best of
 non-optimal AP placements. (OR, I could be totally wrong: Maybe the issues
 were that previously, with our “AG only coverage, clients were using old
 and well-debugged drivers, but when we updated to N radios, we hit more
 driver problems. We certainly had some issues with early Win8.1 drivers.)
 In two areas where many users had connectivity problems  with the Meraki
 system, we replaced our original MR16s with MR34s, and the problems went
 away. So, maybe some connectivity issues are only with these
 now-discontinued radios.

 I certainly agree that when there are not any problems, the Meraki system
 is really easy to manage. Adding a new temporary SSID to a group of APs is
 really quick and easy, and initially integrating it with our existing
 RADIUS server was pretty simple as well. However, if you do have problems,
 the lack of data about what is actually happening with your clients can be
 frustrating. Early on, we had what turned out to be a MSTP problem with the
 AP VLAN, so the problem was totally my fault, not Meraki’s. However, their
 user-viewable “Event Log” does not provide any info about the AP losing its
 upstream connection, and thus going offline and dropping clients. (You will
 get an alert if the AP is off for five minutes or more, but 30-second drops
 for bogus MSTP re-convergences are invisible.) I finally got a clue to the
 problem when a user complained that his tablet and laptop had both lost
 their wifi connection simultaneously. I looked at the AP’s log and found
 nothing, so I opened a ticket, and the tech told me that according to the
 AP's secret, non-user-accessable log, it had lost its connectivity for 30
 seconds. I think it would be handy for troubleshooting if such events made
 it to the Event Log that is visible on their Dashboard.

 I also agree with Rand Hall at Merrimack’s points about “lack of
 transparency”, particularly with respect to firmware updates. We had
 several MR16s fail within a few months of deployment, and support never
 mentioned that there was any known issue with the MR16 firmware bricking
 some APs. Eventually, however, they released a firmware update that seems
 to have resolved the problem, even though they never said specifically what
 the issue was. On the plus side, they are very fast about replacing failed
 APs, and after the first few, they offered me upgrades to the MR34 for each
 MR16 that failed, so that was really nice.

 Not sure what other systems you are looking at. In the course of our
 evaluation, I also really liked Ruckus and Aerohive. Ruckus’ software on
 the controller didn't have many fancy features, but their radios totally
 just work. In the testing I did in our problem coverage areas, they were
 really great, and actual client device throughput seemed significantly
 better than with other systems.

 Aerohive (unlike Meraki) has a ton of data available for monitoring and
 troubleshooting, but with the trade off of being more complex to configure
 initially. They have a 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Evaluation

[Hall, Rand]

Do you just get user complaints when no one can connect, or is
there some way to automatically monitor the dashboard, and reboot
APs that have had zero clients for a long time?  (Is there a report
that gives daily users per AP? I have not found anything better than
checking the APs list several times a day, though it would be handy
to see peak client counts and such.)  Is there any way to proactively
reboot groups of APs early in the morning or something?

Great question. We do get legitimate complaints...but they are VERY
difficult to identify amid all of the wifi sucks
http://wirednot.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/when-good-wireless-feels-bad/
comments.

You can sort APs by client count for the last 2 hours. Any AP in a
residence with 0 clients in two hours gets a reboot. Note well that 0
doesn't always mean 0. We often see APs with 0 clients in the last two
hours that have active clients.

Meraki support can do a mass reboot remotely but that is not a
user-accessible feature. I'm OK with that. If I wanted lots of knobs and
levers I'd buy something else.



Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Fri, Nov 7, 2014 at 8:53 PM, Steve Bohrer skboh...@simons-rock.edu
wrote:

 Hi Rand,

 Thanks for your comments to the wifi list about Meraki’s lack of
 transparency.


 On Oct 27, 2014, at 2:47 PM, Hall, Rand ha...@merrimack.edu wrote:

 […]

 We recently blindly updated the firmware before school started and appear
 to be paying a price. That price is at least two-fold, APs regularly stop
 accepting connections until rebooted (not cool) and reverting to previous
 firmware doesn't seem to be an option. Engineering is on the case, but
 tight-lipped.


 […]

 We've also had a few MR16s start failing recently. I don't expect them to
 last forever but hope this is not a trend.


 We switched to Meraki from an aged Cisco WLC/WCS system last January, and
 now have 110 MR16 APs. We are only about 1/8th your size in terms of
 student population, though our campus is fairly spread out, so I probably
 need about another 25 APs to cover most of it with reasonable density. I
 had four or five AP failures within the first couple months of deployment.
 Our symptoms were the AP would be completely non-responsive, with only the
 power LED glowing orange, no other lights or activity. After four of these
 failures, they started offering me MR34s as replacements, which was a
 pretty sweet deal. Then, after seven such failures, they released a
 firmware update in early June that seems to have stopped these particular
 failures for us — I’ve had one MR16 die since then, but it was just totally
 dead, no LEDs lit at all, so this is perhaps just a random failure, rather
 than the same pattern.

 Still, they never really admitted that there was a firmware issue causing
 the failures. They just emailed me specifically to suggest that I installed
 the June update as soon as possible. The notes they sent about the changes
 are very vague:


- New VLAN debugging tools to help detect VLAN configuration problems
- Distributed layer 3 roaming (no concentrator appliance required)
- 802.11k (radio resource management) and 802.11r (fast BSS
transition) wireless protocols
- Hotspot 2.0/802.11u wireless protocols
- Enhanced stability and performance improvements

 I guess the “enhanced stability” means that MR16s stopped bricking
 themselves. I asked specifically about this, and was told that the details
 of the update were “proprietary”. Still, it seems to have done the trick.

 Thus, I was surprised to read that the recent firmware updates were giving
 you problems, as I’ve not seen this, so far as I know. However, perhaps the
 issue is different versions of the MR16 hardware; if everyone else was
 seeing the nearly 10% firmware-caused lock-up rate that I saw our first six
 months of deployment, I hope I would have heard of it. Thus, I’m guessing
 most people didn’t have the “orange power LED” failure; and similarly,
 perhaps your issue is only with your specific MR16 revision. (Not, of
 course, that the system gives us any info about different possible hardware
 revisions, so who really knows. Maybe all MR16s are identical, and it is
 just random, or based on some difference of deployment.)

 Anyway, I’m wondering how you are tracking the problem. Do you just get
 user complaints when no one can connect, or is there some way to
 automatically monitor the dashboard, and reboot APs that have had zero
 clients for a long time?  (Is there a report that gives daily users per AP?
 I have not found anything better than checking the APs list several times a
 day, though it would be handy to see peak client counts and such.)  Is
 there any way to proactively reboot groups of APs early in the morning or
 something

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Evaluation

[Hall, Rand]

Jeremy,

We've deployed 475+ APs over the last three years and been *very *happy
until recently. The lack of transparency is becoming problematic.
Non-firmware dependent (cloud) features often come and go without warning
or documentation. Firmware release notes are unavailable. We recently
blindly updated the firmware before school started and appear to be paying
a price. That price is at least two-fold, APs regularly stop accepting
connections until rebooted (not cool) and reverting to previous firmware
doesn't seem to be an option. Engineering is on the case, but tight-lipped.

We've also had a few MR16s start failing recently. I don't expect them to
last forever but hope this is not a trend.

I'd categorize us as still very happy with Meraki but no longer in
cheerleader mode :-) You should definitely consider them.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Mon, Oct 27, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Jeremy Hunt hunt...@lcc.edu wrote:

  We’re getting some evaluation Meraki APs shortly and I was wondering if
 anyone had any information on how Meraki worked out for you; what trouble
 you ran into (if any) or anything else you might want to share.



 Thanks in advance,



 Jeremy Hunt

 *Network Analyst*

 *Lansing Community College*


  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.



**
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group 
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] HP Printers / WiFi Direct

[Hall, Rand]

+1 We have been absolutely plagued by interference this year. It's always
been manageable in the past...but not this year. The proliferation of
devices is mind-boggling. I have an idea that the only way to clean the air
in the residences is to turn off the power. The stuff running off
batteries, for the most part, play nice.

Wi-Fi is doomed:

http://wirednot.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/wi-fi-as-we-know-it-is-doomed/


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and five minutes finding solutions. – Einstein

On Mon, Oct 6, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Thomas Carter tcar...@austincollege.edu
wrote:

 We seem to be having more and more wireless interference from devices that
 are not wireless routers/APs. HP printers and their obnoxious setup
 wireless are becoming more common, and this semester we've seen a few
 devices using WiFi Direct (basically an ad-hoc wireless network) - the PS4
 has the ability to connect to other Sony devices, and Roku players that
 used WiFi for its remote control.

 This forks from the FCC just declared WLAN quarantine features illegal
 thread, but how are you dealing with these other forms of wireless
 interference. We've essentially had to resort back to physically locating
 them and knocking on doors. We printed up an information sheet to slide
 under doors, and communicate with residential staff, but it seems to have
 mediocre success. We've also tried to communicate to students that the
 cause of slow wireless is most likely interference from other devices in an
 attempt to utilize peer pressure as well.  Unfortunately it seems to all be
 very time consuming to track down and communcate.

 Thomas Carter
 Network and Operations Manager
 Austin College
 903-813-2564




**
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group 
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] 802.11AC Future Infrastructure

[Hall, Rand]

+1

This has been the case for us for years. 95%+ of our traffic is not local.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Wed, Dec 18, 2013 at 2:33 PM, Hanset, Philippe C phan...@utk.edu wrote:

  And the WLAN industry also does strange math ;-)

  A lot of services are going to the Cloud, mostly using your pipe to the
 Internet.
 It seems that, progressively or even rapidly, the limiting factor is not
 Wi-Fi anymore but rather the pipe to the internet.
 1 Gbps to each Wireless AP is a lot of bandwidth! and a lot of
 oversubscription all around (edge, distribution, core, WAN)
 Unless you plan to distribute UHDTV (8K TV) to your dorms, I wouldn't
 worry about getting more than 1 Gbps to each AP for a long time.
 Also most of 802.11ac APs are fine with 802.3af!


  Philippe Hanset
 www.eduroam.us

  On Dec 18, 2013, at 12:56 PM, Lee H Badman lhbad...@syr.edu
  wrote:

  The WLAN industry is doing an absolutely horrible, almost shameful job
 of managing the message on cabling for 11ac, says I.

 Lee Badman
 Network Architect/Wireless TME
 ITS, Syracuse University
 315.443.3003

 -Original Message-
 *From:* Turner, Ryan H [rhtur...@email.unc.edu]
 *Received:* Wednesday, 18 Dec 2013, 12:52
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU [
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU]
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] 802.11AC Future Infrastructure

   BTW…  Before anyone jumps on me, I understand the purpose of the
 question.  It’s great to know the best practices for the ‘what if’
 situation.


  Ryan H Turner
  Senior Network Engineer
  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  CB 1150 Chapel Hill, NC 27599
  +1 919 445 0113 Office
  +1 919 274 7926 Mobile


   *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Turner, Ryan H
 *Sent:* Wednesday, December 18, 2013 12:47 PM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] 802.11AC Future Infrastructure


  Call me naïve, but I think 10 gig uplinks for ac WAPs is serious
 overkill.  We have almost 4,500 switches across campus, most with 1 gig
 user uplinks, and the vast majority are perfectly fine with 1G (heck, we
 could swap a good number of those for 100 Meg, and they’d barely notice).
 These are switches with 48+ connected devices, all at 1 gig.  So, for most
 access points that will be seeing far less users than a traditional edge
 switch with a one gig uplink, I don’t see the need to go crazy with the
 feed speed.  I could see deploying 2 single gig links to the .ac access
 points, but not 10 gig.  Exceptions to this ‘could’ be very dense classroom
 environments with a lot of access points (there are exceptions to
 everything).


  Ryan H Turner
  Senior Network Engineer
  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  CB 1150 Chapel Hill, NC 27599
  +1 919 445 0113 Office
  +1 919 274 7926 Mobile


   *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [
 mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDUWIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 ] *On Behalf Of *Stewart, Joe
 *Sent:* Wednesday, December 18, 2013 12:40 PM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* [WIRELESS-LAN] 802.11AC Future Infrastructure


  As this technology begins to be deployed is anyone out there planning
 ahead for wave two of this?  I know it’s not going to happen for a while
 but I’m curious if there are folks in the process of new construction where
 you have the option to add the infrastructure now to support the 10Gbps.
 If so, has there been any documentation on what cable type would be
 recommended for this? (ex. CAT6A or CAT7).


  Thanks,




  Joe Stewart
  Network Specialist I
  Information Systems and Network Services
  Claremont McKenna College
  325 E. 8th Street, Roberts South #12
  Claremont, CA 91711


  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.


  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.



**
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group 
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Social media credentials for guest access?

[Hall, Rand]

Lee,

We're on the same wavelength--I can see the allure for commercial
applications. Higher ed uses will lean more toward attribution. We tried
Facebook authentication for about 20 seconds before coming to the
conclusion that our target population would be overly skeptical about what
we might do with the data.

We're currently authenticating guests via SMS.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Tue, Dec 10, 2013 at 2:59 PM, Lee H Badman lhbad...@syr.edu wrote:

  Hello to the Group-

 Among WLAN vendors and portal provider, the usage of social media login as
 an acceptable guest network sign-in mechanism is getting more common. I get
 the appeal for retail/hospitality WLANs that ultimately will Target
 marketing at you based on these credentials, but I’m not digging it myself
 for use in higher ed because of the “anyone can come up with a BS social
 media sign-in” factor. At the same time, to dismiss any system that uses
 social media means narrowing down your choices for guest access when you’re
 shopping, and so I wonder…

 Are any schools using guest access that is based on social media login?
 How’s it working out for you, and have you ever regretted the choice?


 Thanks-

 Lee Badman



  ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/.



**
Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group 
discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] nice article Wireless LANs face huge scaling challenges

[Hall, Rand]

Pretty good sums up our challenges...
Pretty much hits everything on the head that we are dealing with here too.

It's pretty sobering to note that that article is more than five years old.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Thu, Oct 17, 2013 at 5:40 PM, Hanson, Mike mhan...@css.edu wrote:

 That is a real good article Kees.

  Pretty much hits everything on the head that we are dealing with here
 too.

 Mike

 Mike Hanson, CISSP
 Network Security Manager
 The College of St. Scholastica
 Duluth, MN





 2013/10/17 Kees Pronk cl.pr...@avans.nl

 FYI:

 http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/082808-wireless-lans.html?page=2

 Pretty good sums up our challenges...

 Kees

 Netwerk admin  engineer

 Avans Hogeschool
 Diensteenheid ICT en Facilitaire Dienst (DIF) - ICT-Beheer

 Bezoekadres:
 Hogeschoollaan 1, Kamer HG204
 4818 CR  Breda

 Postadres:
 Postbus 90116
 4800 RA Breda

 E: cl.pr...@avans.nl
 T: 076-5238054



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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Dual Band USB adapters

[Hall, Rand]

I suggested a USB adapter for the first time yesterday! An expensive
alternative to asking your neighbor to turn off their bleating HP
printer...but that was the option chosen.

You might want to survey the area to verify your hypothesis. My guess would
be that you have more 18 year old printers and routers than 70 year old
routers. If you do end up with a lot of hip grannies I might consider
carving out a Free Senior Wireless--complements of Moody SSID and just
give them free internet access to rid yourself of the problem. If you hunt
gramps' routers down you can mark them as known rogues and let your auto-RF
channel assignment do it's job and plan around them.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Paul Walker paul.wal...@moody.edu wrote:

 Has anyone suggested to students that only have single-band wireless
 adapters to obtain a dual-band USB adapter for better performance (by
 driving them to the 5ghz band)?  If so, have you seen adapters that you
 would not recommend in an enterprise environment?  We have a Cisco wireless
 infrastructure and have been testing the Cisco/Linksys AE3000 and newer
 AE6000 USB adapters.  No real feedback from students yet, but am looking
 for other viable options to recommend if they exist.

 ** **

 Background:

 We have one residence hall that is half student housing and half HUD
 senior housing.  We own the building, but can’t take full occupancy until
 some date in the future (2018 maybe).  Due to leasing agreements and such,
 we don’t have students all on the same floors (students and seniors are
 intermixed on every floor).  This building is all wireless and has about 7
 APs per floor.  We believe that due to the AP density and the possibility
 that there is personal wireless (in the senior housing apartments)  in
 close proximity to our infrastructure, we could be dealing with a great
 deal of interference in the 2.4 Ghz band.  Roughly 53% of all wireless
 devices on campus are running 802.11n on 2.4 Ghz.  Almost every student
 that has called to complain about a poor wireless experience in this hall
 is using the 2.4 Ghz band.  Hence the desire to provide options to our
 students with single-band adapters to purchase something that is a dual
 band.

 ** **

 Thanks,

 ** **

 *Paul Walker*

 *Division Manager, Computer  Network Support | Information Systems*

 Moody Bible Institute

 820 N. LaSalle Blvd., Chicago, IL  60610

 312-329-4392

 www.moodyministries.net

 From the Word.  To Life.

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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Reducing unnecessary interference...

[Hall, Rand]

Welcome to the Club, Jeff!

Phase 1 of your initiation is complete.

I think everyone in the room wants to know how to solve the interference
education problem. For something so critical to their perception of
happiness, you'd think students would pay attention to messaging related to
fast internet. Not much luck here.

Keep throwing stuff at the wall in as many venues as possible IT support
web site, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

In Apple audiences, give them info from the Respected Mothership like
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1365

If you use a pay-to-print model in your labs pay a bounty to students who
surrender their printer.

On your support website include instructions for disabling wireless on some
of the big offenders like Time Capsules and a few of the more common
printers.

Grab a Turtle Beach wireless headset and show up at the gamers meeting and
demo its wireless death ray.

Most of us are lucky enough to have bad enough cell service that hotspots
are not an issue ;-)

Pictures are worth a thousand
wordshttps://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6qVEYXrgauKZFo1dnVvSjdfVW8/edit?usp=sharing
:

Do cursory surveys in buildings and then put scary posters like this
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15KK_aW1gTDsx5cB3-b4Qk2dfY41qNJRqZTaL_g7ERNg/edit?usp=sharingon
the door:

Enlist the Resident Assistants. They want their residents to be happy. Show
them how to identify kosher SSIDs and let them know that if they see
anything else to knock on a couple of doors.

Deputize student employees to take a geiger counter like WiFi
Analyzer'shttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzerhl=enSignal
Meter to wander the halls like zombies on the hunt.


Good luck...because it doesn't work :-) I keep saying the amazing thing is
that there aren't more reports of black eyes in our residences. Maybe it's
not as big a problem as we think it is.






Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Sun, Sep 15, 2013 at 9:58 PM, Jeff Kell jeff-k...@utc.edu wrote:

 This is our first real production year on having wireless coverage in
 our residence halls.  We had VERY limited availability before, typically
 some commons areas, but we finally obtained funding to go all-out.

 There have been some early complaints of weak spots or coverage holes.
 In  investigating these, we are discovering a number of user devices are
 generating interference, particularly on 2.4G...  wireless routers
 (which we don't support and do quarantine), but even more wireless
 printers pushing out their ad-hoc configuration default SSIDs.

 Has anyone done a laundry list of how-to guides to disable wireless on
 any of these devices?  There are too many of them out there for us to
 try to address individually, but hopefully an email word-of-warning and
 explanation, along with a link to how to resolve the issue would be
 sufficient for most.  But we're not sure where to start :)

 Jeff

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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Anyone tried Ubiquiti UniFi campus wifi?

[Hall, Rand]

If you're willing to consider Ubiquiti you should take a look at Cisco's
Meraki stuff. You may be able to get some trade-in value for your old Cisco
stuff to stay with Cisco. It might make replacing your whole wireless
network within reach.

We have a 450 AP Meraki installation that's great. We added 125 this
summer. It's nice to just keep adding without running into the controller
brick wall (like you've experienced). It doesn't have all of the knobs and
buttons of a Cisco or Aruba--but that doesn't seem like a deal breaker for
you.



Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Steve Bohrer skboh...@simons-rock.eduwrote:

 A few months ago there were some generally positive posts about Ubiquiti's
 Air Fiber links, but I'm wondering if anyone has tried out their UniFi
 controller-less campus wifi solution, particularly with their dual-band
 UniFi Pro AP and/or their UniFi AP AC access points.

 For background, we are a very small college, and currently have an older
 Cisco WLC/WPS system, mostly with their A/G APs; though we have N in one
 building. The hardware limit of our current pair of WLCs is 75 APs, and
 we've hit that, so are considering our next step: Expand our Cisco system
 with newer gear; or else go to something else for our un-covered buildings,
 and have two systems running side-by-side for a while as we transition to
 the new system.

 I want to add about 25 APs right now to cover our four main dorms, and I
 think our eventual full-coverage, high-density (for small values of
 high!) deployment might be about 150 APs total.

 Staying with Cisco means upgrading from our WLC 4402s to 5508, which also
 means upgrading from WCS to PI, and it is feeling a bit like overkill for
 our size. I can't say that I've been heavily using all of the features and
 reporting of our current WCS.

 We are having presentations from other vendors, and my Sys Admin
 recommended Ubiquiti, and their price is _amazingly_ low. WIth their gear,
 we could add the new APs and also replace all of our existing Cisco APs for
 significantly less than the cost of adding 25 new Cisco N APs+WLC+PI. For
 our scale, that is really attractive.

 Part of the cost saving, of course, is that Ubiquiti doesn't have reps and
 a sales team and such, so we won't get nearly as whizzy a pitch from
 Ubiquiti as we have from the rest of the wifi vendors. Thus, first hand
 experiences from other schools that have actually deployed this stuff would
 be very useful.

 Thanks for any pros or cons you can share about UniFi. (Feel free to
 mention your favorite wifi system as well, if you think it reasonable for
 our small scale and budget. From the stuff we've seen so far, I like
 Ruckus, Aerohive, and Meru, but don't have much user feedback on any of
 them.)

 Steve Bohrer
 Network Admin, ITS
 Bard College at Simon's Rock
 413-528-7645

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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] [Off-Topic] Computer Labs

[Hall, Rand]

In a day when all students have a computer, we're still providing plenty of
labs. Students want them because, we know the college computers will work
when we need to write a paper. It's almost like they treat their PCs like
disposable burners or something :-)


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 4:56 PM, Eric T. Barnett ebarn...@astate.eduwrote:

 We have a new Liberal Arts building that is currently in construction. The
 floor plans aren't quite nailed down yet but there was something on the
 current plans that made me wonder. There's no less than six computer labs
 in the building. Seeing that we make all of our Freshmen buy iPads and that
 laptops are super cheap nowadays, I was wondering just how useful computer
 labs are now/will be in the next two years or so. Getting rid of most or
 all of those labs would cut down on costs considerably. I've heard of some
 colleges dumping computer labs as they seem to be needed less and less as
 users have more and more tech available cheaply. What's your take?

 Regards,

 Eric Barnett
 Senior Network Engineer/Wireless Administrator
 Information and Technology Services
 Arkansas State University
 (870) 680-4243
 http://wireless.astate.edu





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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Non-802.1x devices on wireless...

[Hall, Rand]

This is an excellent practice. Many of our people have no idea which
network they are on and often wonder why the network is crappy. We see
clients regularly using both our 802.1x and open networks. Just like other
areas of life, one unprotected connection can haunt you for life ;-) Our
penicillin prompt urges them to delete the open network profile. Everyone
screams about being proactive. This is a win.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Timothy Cappalli cappa...@brandeis.eduwrote:

 We’re also experimenting with the idea of a “nag page” when a known 802.1x
 user decides to use open. Each time they connect from a browser-capable
 device, they would see a page that shows the benefits of using eduroamand 
 what is restricted on open.



 * *

 *Tim Cappalli, *Network Engineer
 LTS | Brandeis University
 x67149 | (617) 701-7149
 cappa...@brandeis.edu



 *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Peter P Morrissey
 *Sent:* Wednesday, June 05, 2013 8:39 AM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Non-802.1x devices on wireless...



 My only suggestion would be to be careful not to err on the side of
 “suck.” We did that for a while, but I really had a problem offering a
 service that “sucks.” It also struck me that it did not offer a welcoming
 environment  to our visitors. I agree that it is important to have
 incentives that gently steer non-guests towards the 802.1x service. Logging
 into a web page each time provides built in incentive. We also found that
 that limiting the time they are allowed to use the guest service, to the
 time it takes to get a temporary ID that can get them on 802.1x was the
 ideal, rather than cripple the service itself so that it was a frustrating
 experience for those who used it. We usually capture a phone number to
 cover attribution. The other advantage of the “open” SSID is that it is a
 good temporary solution for someone who has issues configuring their device
 for 1x. Some devices have difficulties (even using Xpressconnect). And when
 you think about it, maybe it isn’t the end of the world if someone who can
 do 802.1x uses an open SSID. It happens all the time in coffee shops,
 hotels and airports all across the country.



 Pete Morrissey



 *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [
 mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDUWIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU]
 *On Behalf Of *Jeff Kell
 *Sent:* Tuesday, June 04, 2013 8:29 PM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Non-802.1x devices on wireless...



 On 6/4/2013 8:20 PM, Tim Cappalli wrote:

 We restrict some services on open. Also, as part of the registration
 process, their device will be configured for eduroam and the open SSID will
 be removed from their network list. They could hop back on if they want.
 It's their choice.


 If you have an open SSID, just be sure to make the service suck just
 enough that anyone that can use the proper SSIDs, will want to use the
 proper SSIDs.  You can restrict ports, protocols, bandwidth, whatever it
 takes; but it has to be just adequate to cover the guest demands and just
 inadequate enough to push your real users to your real SSID.

 If you don't impose some restrictions, they'll use the easiest
 connection everytime.

 Jeff

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 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Policy

[Hall, Rand]

Thanks for the reminder that we technically have no authority over the
radio spectrum, even in our own campuses.

The key word here is technically.  This is (yet) another case where we
should let the lawyers be the lawyers. Don't let the FCC spook you. Go talk
to your general counsel.

You have broad discretion in defining community standards. We often offer
to stop taking someone's tuition. That is usually a good incentive in our
environment.


Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 6:08 PM, Joel Coehoorn jcoeho...@york.edu wrote:

 Thanks for the reminder that we technically have no authority over the
 radio spectrum, even in our own campuses.

 To add a wrinkle, Windows 7 ships with the ability to act as a wifi
 gateway. You can set up any PC with a wireless card to act as a router,
 without needing to install anything that didn't ship with the OS. Certainly
 linux (and macs by extension) have the same ability. Thankfully, this isn't
 common knowledge for most students, but it does make it trickier to craft a
 policy statement that prohibits rogue devices, when the rogue device may
 have double duty as the students' desktop, and this may itself be connected
 only via wifi.

 Sent from my iPad

 On May 14, 2013, at 4:47 PM, Max Lawrence Lopez max.lo...@colorado.edu
 wrote:

  Hello,
 
  Here are a few of the replies that I received:
  
  Max,
 
  I don't set policy here at Syracuse but I used to run the network group
 and I've worked pretty close with Lee Badman over the years.
 
  I remember the early years of wireless at SU when Lee was wrestling with
 this issue. It was a no-win situation and the only way to get people to
 stop deploying rogue AP's was to deploy a secure production wireless
 network, to take away the motivation. Of course, that took time and money.
 
  I now teach classes here at SU focused on wireless and we have been
 discussing this topic. My understanding of the law is that no University
 has the legal right to prohibit someone from using an unlicensed radio
 device as long as that device has been certified by the FCC. The FCC
 governs the public airwaves and Universities have no authority. However, in
 the case of traditional rogue APs/routers, a University can prevent these
 devices from being connected to its network or require users to remove them
 from its network. Where it gets trickier is the situation with personal
 Wi-Fi hotspots, which use 3G/4G as a the backhaul. My understanding is you
 cannot legally prohibit the use of these devices, even if they cause
 interference on your network.
 
  I have a team of students in my class who are evaluating these devices.
 We have discovered that at least some of them default to using Channel 2 in
 the 2.4 GHz band. This is a terrible situation if you are using a standard
 channel plan of 1-6-11. As you may know, the impact of adjacent channel
 interference (1-2) is actually worse than if both devices were on the same
 channel.
 
  I just thought I would share my thesis on this topic. I'd appreciate it
 if you could share any other insights you gain as it would be good
 background for my students.
 
  --
  Dave Molta
  Associate Professor of Practice
  Director, Bachelor of Science, Information Management and Technology
 Director, Minor, Information Technology, Design, and Startup Syracuse
 University School of Information Studies
  
 
  Hi,
  UCR's is here:
 
 
 http://fboapps.ucr.edu/policies/index.php?path=viewPolicies.phppolicy=400-37
 
  Thanks,
  --russ
  _
 
 
  Thanks,
  Max Lopez
  Senior Staff Authority for Wireless
  Office of Information Technology
  University of Colorado
  www.colorado.edu
  max.lo...@colorado.edu
 
  _
 
  -Original Message-
  From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] On Behalf Of J. Scot Prunckle
  Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 10:55 AM
  To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
  Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Policy
 
  All,
 
  I, too, would be interested in any discussion on this topic.  It's
 something we may consider as well.
 
  Thank you to all in advance for your comments.
 
  Sincerely,
 
 
  J. Scot Prunckle
  Network Engineer
  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
  Office: (414) 229-7206
  Cell: (414) 208-6703
  E-mail: prunc...@uwm.edu
 
 
  - Original Message -
  From: Danny Eaton dannyea...@rice.edu
  To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
  Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2013 11:19:01 AM
  Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Wireless Policy
 
  I realize this is a month or so behind, but I'd be interested in this 

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Distributed WiFi model - Thin vs Thick debate revisited

[Hall, Rand]

Yes, I think there's a mistaken impression about the Aerohives and Merakis
out there. Some of it is FUD from the big iron vendors. Some of it is
old-timers like me questioning the over-hyped magic cloud.

The stuff works. Anyone looking to move off their current solution should
take a look. It's not perfect, but neither is the establishment.

Rand

P.S. A little de-FUD if you want it: http://www.meraki.com/trust/#oob




Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Hurt,Trenton W.
trent.h...@louisville.eduwrote:

  With the aerohive solution this is done thru cooperative control amongst
 the aps that are RF neighbors with each other.  Here is article that
 discusses the protocols that aerohive uses to accomplish this.



 http://blogs.aerohive.com/blog/wi-fi-that-wont-die/cooperative-control-part-3
 

 ** **

 ** **

 *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:
 WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU] *On Behalf Of *Watters, John
 *Sent:* Monday, April 29, 2013 11:55 AM

 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Distributed WiFi model - Thin vs Thick
 debate revisited

  ** **

 ** **

 What happens to client roaming, RF balancing, and channel selection
 without a controller-based architecture?

 ** **

 If you use the Aruba Airwave AMP management platform, it should be able to
 keep your autonomous APs in sync.

 ** **

 ** **

 -jcw
 [image: cid:image001.jpg@01CE44EA.874CDAC0]

 ** **

 *
 *

 John Watters   The University of Alabama

 Office of Information
 Technology

 205-348-3992

  
   --

 *From:* The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [
 mailto:WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDUWIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU]
 *On Behalf Of *Tim Cappalli
 *Sent:* Monday, April 29, 2013 10:50 AM
 *To:* WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
 *Subject:* Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Distributed WiFi model - Thin vs Thick
 debate revisited

 ** **

 What types of controller issues are you seeing that you hope to be fixed
 with a controller-less architecture?


 

  

 Tim Cappalli*, *Network Engineer
 LTS | Brandeis University
 x67149 | (617) 701-7149
 cappa...@brandeis.edu

 ** **

 On Mon, Apr 29, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Barros, Jacob jkbar...@grace.edu
 wrote:

 Hello all.  We are seriously considering replacing our Aruba
 infrastructure in favor of a distributed model.  We are having controller
 issues this academic year and the appeal of a controller-less model is
 strong. 

 ** **

 It feels like I am coming full circle to where I was six years ago.
  Though I know its not exactly the same, I went back to the thin vs thick
 debates in the archives.  A few things stood out to me as considerations:
  One concern was vendor longevity.  Another was whether or not the thick AP
 model would be able to keep up with the controller based architecture.  An
 advantage of the controller based architecture that stood out to me was
 central processing, specifically regarding key exchange.

 ** **

 Are these points still valid concerns?  If your administration asked you
 to consider a distributed architecture, what other (vendor-neutral)
 concerns would you have?

 ** **

 Thanks, in advance, for your opinions!

 ** **


 

 ** **

 Jake Barros  |  Network Administrator  |  Office of Information Technology
 

 Grace College and Seminary  |  Winona Lake, IN  |  574.372.5100 x6178

 ** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE
 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
 http://www.educause.edu/groups/. 

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 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
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image001.jpg

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Rogue device / client device location

[Hall, Rand]

We've been able to do a reasonably good job with Wifi
Analyzerhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzerhl=enon
an Android. Fire up the Signal meter and wander around. Once you
narrow it down to your 4 rooms just stick your phone against each door. The
doors leak more signal than the walls and will betray the perp.



Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein


On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 2:33 PM, Thomas Carter tcar...@austincollege.eduwrote:

 I would like to improve our ability to accurately locate rogue wireless
 access points or clients. With non-directional methods, we can narrow it
 down to a general area; for example, maybe one of 4 rooms in a residential
 hall. However I would like to be able to narrow it down with much more
 certainty.  

 ** **

 What methods are others using for this? The Fluke AirCheck with
 directional antenna seems to do the job well, but with the usual Fluke
 price tag. Is anyone using anything cheaper or homegrown? Any experience
 with USB adapters with directional antennas?

 ** **

 Thanks,

 Thomas Carter

 Network and Operations Manager

 Austin College 

 903-813-2564

 [image: AusColl_Logo_Email]

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 Constituent Group discussion list can be found at
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image001.gif

Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] Meraki Wireless Access Points

[Hall, Rand]

Merrimack moved from Cisco to Meraki about 18 months ago. We have around
350 APs in our deployment and are very happy. You might need to do some
manual channel management if the Merakis are going to be deployed in Cisco
airspace. No big deal.

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein



On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 1:14 PM, Laird, Sara M la...@msmary.edu wrote:

  Hello,

 ** **

 We are currently looking at piloting eight of the Meraki MR 16-HW wireless
 access points.  I am looking for two things.  One if anyone has any
 experience with these access points could you give me the good the bad, and
 the ugly as it applies.  My second question is has anyone run Meraki WAPS
 in and environment with Cisco WAP also running?  If so did you have any
 problems?  Thank you for time and comments.

 ** **

 Sara

 ** **

 Sara M. Laird

 Network Administrator

 Mount Saint Mary's University

 301.447.5014

 Faith t Discovery t Leadership t Community

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Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] wireless printers in dorms

[Hall, Rand]

This is our experience. Students are printing via USB and don't realize
that wireless is enabled. Many students don't pay attention to our many
communication efforts. To win the war for those who do, we dedicate bodies
to hunt them down, do one-on-one education, offer to find/read the docs and
turn wireless off, and as a last option for the cheap printers that can't
disable wireless--plead with the student to power it up and down whenever
they need to print.

Rand

Rand P. Hall
Director, Network Services askIT!
Merrimack College
978-837-3532
rand.h...@merrimack.edu

If I had an hour to save the world, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute finding solutions. – Einstein



On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 3:36 PM, Tom O'Donnell to...@maine.edu wrote:

 I left out a couple factors... I don't know if the printers are
 printing wirelessly, or that students even intend them to. They just
 show up with wireless enabled, and whatever education we've done on
 the subject doesn't seem to help.

 Sometimes we'll find a printer and the person has a USB cable. Nope,
 I'm not using wireless on my printer, just the USB. But they don't
 realize the wireless is on.

 We don't intend for them to work, at any rate. We prohibit it, but
 going door to door hasn't worked completely. Word gets around the
 dorms, and students hide their printers :)

 --
 Tom O'Donnell
 Senior Manager of Network and Server Systems
 Information Technology Services
 University of Maine at Farmington
 (207) 778-7336


 On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Julian Y Koh kohs...@northwestern.edu
 wrote:
  On Oct 30, 2012, at 13:53 , Tom O'Donnell to...@maine.edu
   wrote:
 
  I was wondering how other schools handle wireless printers in the
  dorms.  This seems to be the year everyone showed up with one, and
  they're causing connectivity problems in our 2.4GHz space.
 
  How well do the printers work anyway wirelessly?  Depending on the
 service advertisement protocols and printing protocols used, the client
 types, your authentication requirements (since most printers don't do
 WPA2-Enterprise/802.1X) and your subnetting/address assignment scheme, I
 wonder how successful people are at actually getting these things to work
 anyway.
 
 
  --
  Julian Y. Koh
  Manager, Network Transport, Telecommunications and Network Services
  Northwestern University Information Technology (NUIT)
  2001 Sheridan Road #G-166
  Evanston, IL 60208
  847-467-5780
  NUIT Web Site: http://www.it.northwestern.edu/
  PGP Public Key:http://bt.ittns.northwestern.edu/julian/pgppubkey.html
 
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Don't do it! (was: What about WLAN in the Dorms? )

[Hall, Rand]

Philippe brings up some good points. We, however, aren't ready to bite
the $350,000 bullet for a redundant system purely for convenience.

We are starting to feel some pressure to do something, though. Like
everyone else (I imagine), we get beat up for not having wireless in the
dorms. We have a sizable percentage of students who think it's the
number one problem at the school. To me this seems irrational...but I'm
willing to work with it.

We provide a port-per-pillow and have a long-standing policy of
prohibiting unauthorized network extensions (hubs, switches, APs). We
don't actively enforce it and the students are pretty good about
respecting the policy.

We have rolled out a new wired infrastructure that takes care of many of
the problems previously caused by student-provided network equipment
(DHCP snooping, etc). We're contemplating being more liberal about
allowing switches and APs. At that point, the problem would largely be
interference and channel overlap (not our problem). We could wash our
hands completely of any non-wired problems and reserve the right to
remove problem devices from the network. I think this could go a long
way toward calming some of the restless (and put the ball in their
court).

Ideally, we'd want to provide them with some in-depth advice on how to
successfully configure a widely available suggested AP (like a Linksys
wrt54g). A good model for the issues to be covered:

http://www.net.princeton.edu/wireless-access-points/

What are good tips besides don't do it ;-)


Cheers,
Rand

Please STARTsafe and RUNsafe  -- www.merrimack.edu/runsafe
--
Rand P. Hall * Director, Network Services
Merrimack College * SunGard Higher Education
315 Turnpike Street, North Andover MA 01845 * Tel 978-837-5000
Fax 978-837-5383 * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * www.sungardhe.com

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-Original Message-
From: Philippe Hanset [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 2:40 PM
To: WIRELESS-LAN@LISTSERV.EDUCAUSE.EDU
Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] What about WLAN in the Dorms?

So, we have had a 100% coverage of WLAN on campus
since 2001, dealing with all kinds of problems,
and sharing our adventures with this list.

We also have a 100% WLAN network in our
dormatories based on Linksys, Netgear,...
and completely funded by students: read 100% rogue.

This cheap architecture doesn't seem to cut it anymore,
we are going to provide a centrally managed WLAN in the dorms.

Here is a list of positive things that we thought about, if you wouldn't
mind sharing your experience with us, we will be eternally greatful:

-Destruction/disappearance of APs
-Interferences by cordeless phones
-Interference from rogue APs (innocent or voluntary)
-Do you do use vendors that provide a Wi-Fi defense
 (Airtight, Airmagnet, Built-in Meru disassociation)
-If you have a wired port for every student, is wireless
 becoming a replacement or is it a complement
-...and all these ugly ones that we have not thought about

What are good tips besides don't do it

Thank you in advance

Philippe

--
Philippe Hanset
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office of Information Technology
Network Services
108 James D Hoskins Library
1400 Cumberland Ave
Knoxville, TN 37996
Tel: 1-865-9746555
--

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