'America's Most Wired College' dives in to 802.11n wireless networking

Computerworld - "I really think [802.11]a, b and g are nearing end-of-life product status, especially after experiencing the speed of [11]n," says Jean Boland, vice president of IT services at Morrisville State College in New York.

Part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system and listed as a college of agriculture and technology, Morrisville -- which uses the e-mail tagline "America's Most Wired College for 2 Consecutive Years" -- established itself as a leader in mobile computing in education in 1998, when it partnered with IBM to become a "ThinkPad University."

Starting with four curricula, the institution allowed faculty to decide whether portable computing would enhance the courses they taught. If so, it would provide ThinkPads to students, spreading the cost of the laptops across four semesters to make them affordable. Today more than two-thirds of the college's 70-plus curricula require portable computers. "So the program is driven by the faculty," Boland says. "We have a very technology-savvy faculty, and they use computing in curriculum-appropriate ways."

Computer networking was, of course, a vital part of the educational plan from the start. "Mobile computing was great and particularly with a laptop, except that you have to be tethered to a wall for data access," she says. While the college responded to this issue in part by adding wired network connectors near each seat in some classrooms, it also adopted wireless networking very early.

"In 1999, we became a wireless campus -- we called it our Nomadic Learning phase -- so students could learn at the location that was best for them." The college installed Raytheon's Raylink, an early 802.11 frequency-hopping, spread-spectrum product, which provided coverage across the entire campus, including the ice rink, equine barns and parking lots.

Initially the parking lot coverage was spillover from access points (AP) placed elsewhere, but the college quickly learned its value. Winter can be fierce on the Morrisville campus, which is 30 miles from Syracuse, deep in the Great Lakes snow belt and vulnerable to heavy lake-effect snows and bitter wind storms. So commuting students like to check their e-mail from their cars as soon as they arrive on campus, before running to class. Smokers, who aren't allowed to smoke in or near any of the buildings, also tend to use their cars for breaks between classes in winter. So today all the parking lots have wireless coverage.

The wireless revolution

The university took the next step in its wireless revolution in 2003, when it issued Nextel cell phones to every student and took all the landlines out of the residence halls. "We called that our Continuous Communications phase," Boland says. That connectivity has become increasingly important for students. Today, she says, most students' lives involve constant connectivity; they spend their days e-mailing, calling, instant-messaging or texting friends, family members, other students and teachers. They expect that degree of connectivity, and the college needs to provide it.

By 2006, however, the Raylink product was aging. "It had been end-of-lifed, and we were buying pieces from a warehouse," Boland says. The last straw came when she learned that it wouldn't work with Vista. It was time to move on.