John, I’ve often heard it said that wireless is important to recruiting and retention, but I’ve yet to find any solid foundation for the claim. This may be because those search terms in Google return so much unrelated information that the good data is hard to find, or it could be that the claim is tenuous. Can you point us to any sources to substantiate it? I’m skeptical, but open to evidence. It would definitely change the way I think about our wireless services in relation to business needs.
Thanks, Chuck Enfield Manager, Wireless Systems & Engineering Telecommunications & Networking Services The Pennsylvania State University 110H, USB2, UP, PA 16802 ph: 814.863.8715 fx: 814.865.3988 From: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jon Young Sent: Wednesday, May 13, 2015 4:43 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WIRELESS-LAN] AW: [WIRELESS-LAN] To provide (wireless) service, or not to provide (wireless) service... We consult with many higher-ed institutions and the question your President has posed about buying bulk data is a real one that many institutions have looked into. We are frequently asked this question (same question for cellular when it is time to replace the phone system) when we assist schools with the network and WiFi strategy so I can tell you that if you define the "some schools are investigating" this by asking their independent consultants, that is true. If you are asking if it is remotely viable and if anyone is seriously pursuing it beyond asking the question, the answer as you expect is a resounding "no" for all the reasons others have articulated on this thread. That said, a couple of things to note: Many schools have chosen to successfully outsource their resnet including wireless (see the recent resnet report from ACUTA). That is sometimes by letting the local cable company come in and offer service in the residence halls and sometimes by outsourcing resnet to a company like Apogee. There are pros and cons to insourcing vs outsourcing resnet but I think it is reasonable to consider if that is the right choice for your institution. Of I think larger importance to your President - the quality of wireless internet is a key component of student recruitment and retention at many institutions. At the request of one Ivy, I even wrote an internal white paper justifying ubiquitous WiFi across campus based primarily on student recruitment and retention. I suggest speaking with your admissions group and getting their thoughts on the importance of high-quality wireless internet (define that how you like) in the res halls and the rest of campus. Good luck, Jon Young Vantage Technology Consulting Group. On Wed, May 13, 2015 at 9:24 AM, Brian Helman <[email protected]> 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:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jerkan, Kristijan Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2015 12:34 PM To: [email protected] 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 specific person liable (opt82) -there are only single-bed rooms (this is a cultural thing and different than in the US, I guess noone around here would even rent a shared room) -almost no dorms are adjacent to the classrooms/labs (seamless wireless coverage/services wouldn’t be possible anyway) -in order to find enough students (5 for the core team) who will do the occasionally needed actual work without payment, a balance between demands and incentives is important Effect: -very low capex and extremly low opex for the dorm network [numbers only off list] -very limited support calls (maybe 2/week; maybe 10-20 during the move-in-phase, mostly students from the states asking about the non-existant login/pw) -no need to worry about deprication charges or every new feature (regarding wireless: ABG to N to AC; MIMO, fequency analysis chipsets; 2.4ghz to 5ghz, wave2) -the least administrative overhead possible -none of the students in our networking team had problems finding jobs after they left (no trouble finding volunteers, very long participation period) -scalabe system; got us from ~1.2k rooms (back in ’99) within a 1km radius to 5k+ (today) in a 120km radius -effective support answers („Yes, You can also attach every AP You want to You port… No, don’t worry, if You are able to understand Your class reading, You will also understand vendor X’s manual…) -no secondary discussions (health, etc.) -plug&play experience for students -ability to consolidate our attention to more interesting projects; we still provide wireless (eduroam), but only in common areas away from the rooms (ALU/Aruba 6000, now 7210, anything between 124s and 270s except the cloud based APs) -over the years we had some (small and larger) dorms outsourced to different (small and large) companies who provided full wireless-only coverage, standard management as well as forbidden private wireless, but as our own model proved technically resiliant and cost-effective time and again, our external partners solutions didn‘t Basically our setup could be exactly what Your administrative staff/board is aiming for. My personal message to them would be to first and foremost take an honest look at how and why things are the way they are. If they just argue out of a mix of intuition and auserity, their good intentions will cause a fail (probably utterly and completely, like many others before). It is possible to run a cost effective plug&play network, with a high satisfaction rate amoung students (EDU did that long before the BYOD marketing hype). But that requires a high level of cooperation (belivers, ideally who themselves lived in dorms and remember how student life can be), common goals, success in overcoming obstacles and also constant vigilance and re-evaluation. >From an administrative and oversight point of view this is a lot more and complex work than finding, distributing and approving funds. For various reasons it is also not always something that can be implemented everywhere or sustained for a meaningful period of time. Therefore it is often better to honestly deal with the geographic/personal/political reality and to solve the technical problem with money. Even if Your board would want to, a change towards a system like ours takes time. Your institution should definetly not run on an obsolete wireless infrastructure during that periode (and wear out its staff and cause stir among students in the process). Hope this helps to balance the biased view. ;-) Regards, Kris Von: The EDUCAUSE Wireless Issues Constituent Group Listserv [mailto:[email protected]] Im Auftrag von Brian Helman Gesendet: Freitag, 1. Mai 2015 17:23 An: [email protected] Betreff: [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 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/. ********** Participation and subscription information for this EDUCAUSE Constituent Group discussion list can be found at http://www.educause.edu/groups/.
