SDSU Collegian

Issue date: 5/2/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Brandon DeVries Aaron Doughten, freshman electrical engineering technology major, checks on a laptop at the eSDSU station in The Union.

Over this last year many things have made the campus more technologically advanced. My State Online, a student online portal, was launched as well as an arrangement with Hotmail to set up student email accounts. Another advancement is wireless access points around campus, a project that has been under way since the previous Students' Association administration.

SDSU Chief Instructional Technology Officer Michael Adelaine and a board consisting of faculty and students have been researching this issue. When the system was launched in the summer for the fall semester there were 60 points with an upgrade over the winter break. The system currently has 73 access points around campus. Over the summer many more points will be added for general use.

The new access points are to be placed in the hobo hangout (Pierson Hall Basement), day rooms of Binnewies and Young Halls, Mathews Hall basement, Schultz Recital Hall (Lincoln Music Hall), Java City-NFA, and the reading library of Ag Hall.

"These new upgrades do not come at a raised cost to students," says Adelaine. The cost of marinating the system comes from a tech fund. The costs will remain the same for the students. There are two ways that monies are made: the $65 that students pay in the residence halls and the tech fees that are applied to students' billing statement each semester.

With many points already active and more to come, there will be signs and postings of where students may access the internet wirelessly on campus.

Currently there are two different ways to access the wireless Internet on campus. The first is to use the open wire which limits the available bandwidth from 94 mega bytes per second (Mbps) to 5 Mbps. This alternative only allows for web browsing and not downloading or file sharing. The other alternative is to be registered on Jacks Unwired. Jacks Unwired allows for full bandwidth access. This option can be done by visiting the laptop center in the Student Union as well as going to the main tech support office in the Administration Building.

"Over this next summer we are going to do some major reconfiguring of the system" says Adelaine. The original 45 points that were installed will be updated to match the current system. These original points will now be self-aware, like the rest of the system. This means that the whole system will be able to tell where the most use is coming from at that current time and send more power to that point for the time needed.

"There are more points being looked into for the future also," said Adelaine. "Those are being researched."

Students are urged to contact the Students Association Office or the Chief Instructional Technology Office in the Agriculture Communications building behind Admissions with any questions regarding this issue.

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