Brian et al., Context: Small school, over 500 beds, mostly traditional dormitories directly adjacent to school buildings
My professional opinion is that wireless network connectivity is as important to these students as the utilities that physical plant provides. While apartment buildings might be able to wash their hands of this issue, we pack these students in tight here, and the network is more than just entertainment (maybe not at the bit count!), it is also the pathway to many electronic academic resources. Everyone bringing their own wireless router is a recipe for RF disaster that would impair the educational experience for our residents. I have only investigated two options: Internal Management I think for many of us, donning our engineers' hat, this is the clear choice. Who knows our environment and customer needs better than us? That ACUTA report linked below (great read and resource in this conversation) suggests that most of us currently do it this way. My residence halls are basically in the same RF space as my main campus. The problem, of course, is that these dormitories can consume a lot of our team's time, and lead to much customer frustration. Managed Service Originally something the CFO saw at a conference, there are several organizations that provide the residence halls network connectivity as a service. Finance loves this because they get a set SLA at a set price per month. These services are sold to the IT team as a way to get a pesky part of the network outsourced to those with a tried and true model, but I worry some of the firms are after the entire network (takes off paranoid network tinfoil hat). I have little experience with this model except for my investigations over the last six months, but it is attractive to those who want to manage the cost of this service in a dependable way. Scrutinize the SLAs and ensure you have a plan for measuring them yourself. ------------ Because of how small our campus is and the fact that we only need one core to run the whole campus, the cost of paying another company to run a clone of our network for us next to our current one seems silly. Those of you at bigger institutions might see a significantly better price/comparison from the managed solutions, though. I hope my rambling adds to the conversation. Have a great weekend. [cid:[email protected]] Aaron Lamey Director of Network and Telecommunications Christian Brothers University 650 East Parkway South Memphis, TN 38104 (901) 321- 3480 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> www.cbu.edu<http://www.cbu.edu> The information contained in this message and or attachments is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. Any review, retransmission, dissemination or other use of, or taking of any action in reliance upon, this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any system and destroy any copies. From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brian Helman Sent: Friday, May 01, 2015 3:23 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless) service, or not to provide (wireless) service... I was deliberately ambiguous in the initial post, because I wanted to see how the conversation would go. Granted, simply by posting here I have a somewhat biased sampling. The problem is, there's something like 21,000 colleges/universities in the world .. so I'm getting the "I've heard some schools are 'doing this' and it saves a lot of money" (maybe Phillipe's kids need to go to one of those schools ;) ). We're in the process of building a new res hall (opening over the summer) and another was just announced. I mentioned this post to the design committee for the current res hall project and the faces were priceless. Whether we/I agree with moving away from institutionally-owned WiFi or not, I'm going to have to research and write up alternatives. Just a couple answers -- yes, I meant just our Res Halls. --I wonder if I could get a WiFi enabled Prius and drop it in the res halls? My Prius has been rock-solid! --"as a service" was the term that was presented to me. I'm not clear on it at this point either. Lee (et al), what has a higher suck factor -- byoWiFi without support from IT or with? The problem with people having the ability to create their own home networks is, everyone thinks they know how to properly implement a wireless network. It's kind of like education .. we all went to school, so we all think we're experts on the subject. I'll let this conversation continue without my thoughts for a few days and then I'll give more specific information. But I will say, without researching this further, my gut reaction is .. this is the worst idea I've ever heard. And, as the father of a 16 y.o who is finishing her Jr year in HS and looking at colleges, I would never consider a school that avoided technology investment. -Brian ________________________________ From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [[email protected]] on behalf of Jeremy Gibbs [[email protected]] Sent: Friday, May 01, 2015 3:50 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless) service, or not to provide (wireless) service... Not sure if this will make a difference, but if you haven't read this, take a look. It has some very useful data about ResNet/Wireless/Bandwidth etc... https://www.acuta.org/acuta/pdf/041715b.pdf On Fri, May 1, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Lee H Badman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: If wiring costs are the main issue, I'd go with wallplate APs on existing cabling (even if not 11ac- just n). To not provide Wi-Fi is pretty backwards at this point and to say "bring your own" with the expectation that your group will somehow support that is the stuff of nightmares for all parties. Not sure how 4G helps in this case- bad assumption that all devices can use it. Also not understanding what "as a service" amounts to. The more gimmicky it gets, the worse the suck factor will be. -Lee Lee Badman Wireless/Network Architect ITS, Syracuse University 315.443.3003<tel:315.443.3003> (Blog: http://wirednot.wordpress.com) From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>] On Behalf Of Brian Helman Sent: Friday, May 01, 2015 11:23 AM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless) service, or not to provide (wireless) service... A few weeks ago we made a pitch for funding to upgrade our res halls to 802.11ac. This request for funding has had an unforeseen effect. I'm not being asked to investigate NOT providing wireless networking in our res halls. Here are the options, as it has been described to me: -No institutional wireless. Let the students bring in their own AP's -Some kind of managed service (wireless as a service) with 802.11 -Some kind of institutionally owned/leased mobile wireless (e.g we provide our own 4G) -Hybrid -Continue with 802.11n 2.4GHz and fill in holes as they pop up I'm not going to put my thoughts up here just yet. These are the options/thoughts as presented by the levels above me. Let the discussion begin.... ____________________________________ Brian Helman, M.Ed | Director, ITS/Networking Services | *: 978.542.7272<tel:978.542.7272> Salem State University, 352 Lafayette St., Salem Massachusetts 01970 GPS: 42.502129, -70.894779 ********** 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/. -- -- Jeremy L. Gibbs Network Engineer Utica College IITS T: (315) 223-2383 F: (315) 792-3814 E: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://www.utica.edu<http://www.utica.edu/> ********** 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/.
