Campus wireless service disrupted

UIS hopes to have full Wi-Fi by end of 2010

March 4, 2009
By Greta Myers
Public Affairs Reporter

With the UIS campus relying increasingly on the virtual world, it is easy to understand Becca Heathcoat’s frustration.    

“It’s hard to keep up with class work, when I’m not able to take work with me,” Heathcoat said of her problems in getting and maintaining a wireless connection on her laptop.      

“Most of my professors post essential readings on Blackboard,” she said.    

Heathcoat has tried to fix the problem by visiting the UIS Campus Helpdesk in Information Technology Services and the Media Lab. 

“The IT Helpdesk tried to install the VPN client on my laptop. The first time it didn’t work, the second time it crashed,” Heathcoat said. 

The VPN, or virtual private network, is, “the way we authenticate who you are,” said Jamie Voyles, a Telecommunications and Network Specialist II at UIS. “It’s our means of security.”

The problem some students are having is that Cisco Systems, which provides the VPN to UIS, does not have the capabilities for operating systems with a 64 bit encryption, which is common on new laptops, including Microsoft’s Vista.  IT Services has posted a note addressing this incompatibility, under “2008-09 Academic Year Student Computer Recommendations.” 

“The problem is not going to be resolved in any other way than removing the VPN client from the equation,” said Voyles, because Cisco Systems currently has no plans to accommodate VPN users with computers that have a 64 bit operating system.

In response to this, UIS is moving away from the VPN-LAN connection and going to Wi-Fi.  Currently, Founders Residence Hall, University Hall, Trillium Court, TRAC, and the IT Help desk are equipped with Wi-Fi.

The university has made putting additional Wi-Fi access points in at Lincoln Residence Hall a priority because of the large amount of students that live there.

The access points, said UIS Network Analyst, Scott Nafziger, “talk” between the network connection to a central controller.  UIS has already ordered the access points for many housing units, including Bluebell Court, where Heathcoat lives.   Four new access points will, hopefully, be installed in the housing unit by this summer, Voyles said.         

“The new equipment should allow us to find areas of weaker coverage,” Voyles said.  The access points will report back to the central point and will, optimally, make it possible to alter the power level to help fill in gaps in coverage.

Another reason for these gaps, said Voyles, is that older structures like Bluebell Court were built before wireless was put in.

“The challenge is construction.  The foam board with aluminum foil acts like racks in the library,” Voyles said, referring to the interference problems that the metal shelves in Brookens Library have created.   He also said that the new access point equipment will help determine the cause of the interferences. 

Students can help speed the switch to Wi-Fi  by exercising caution when receiving unknown emails, some of which contains worms, like last week’s “Hallmark Virus,” Voyles said.

Voyles said it makes it tough for access points to be installed when the same group of workers is trying to stop a computer virus.

“A lot of time was spent fighting the virus,” Voyles said. “Those things slow things down.”

Though it is uncertain with the budget problems UIS is facing this year, the university hopes to be a Wi-Fi campus by the end of 2010, Nafziger said.