Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Colleges Campuses Go Wireless

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 12:02:47 -0400

Colleges Campuses Go Wireless

Several years ago colleges rushed to achieve the rank of “most wired” but now
those same institutions are in the race for providing the most wireless Internet
services. EDUCAUSE, an association representing IT managers at various
colleges and universities, conducted a survey and reports that 85 percent of the
respondents had wireless access to the Internet on their respective college
campuses. EDUCAUSE says by hooking college students on wireless Internet
access, technology companies could be grooming a future market for their
products as those students make their move into the corporate world.

www.wow-com.com
==========================================================

Posted on Thu, Aug. 28, 2003

Colleges first to adopt wireless Internet
access
Security fears keep corporate world from computing on
airwaves
EMERY P. DALESIO
Associated Press

RALEIGH - Colleges that once competed for the title "most wired"
now are rushing to shed that image -- with wireless systems that
offer Internet access anywhere on campus.

The spread of such technology at colleges offers hope for tech
companies like Cisco Systems and laptop makers like IBM, who
have invested in technology that hasn't yet caught on in the
corporate world.

Wireless networks allow users within a short radius to work on
their computers -- sending e-mails and accessing the Internet --
without being hooked to a phone or DSL line. Instead, data is sent
via radio waves to an antenna and then onto conventional lines.

An extensive network is already in place at Raleigh's Meredith
College, one of the Southeast's largest private women's colleges.
All freshmen receive new wireless IBM notebook computers and
trade them in two years later for new models they can keep after
graduation.

A survey this year by EDUCAUSE, an association that represents
information technology managers at 1,650 colleges and
universities, found that 85 percent of respondents said they had
wireless access somewhere on campus. That's compared with the
world of big business, where about half of the country's large
corporations are at least testing wireless computing access points,
technology research firm IDC said.

Security concerns and the belief that wireless access does not
improve productivity has slowed corporate adoption of such
networks, said IDC personal computing hardware analyst Roger
Kay.

"Students don't have the same security considerations that
businesses do. Typically, unless you're racing for some patent at
MIT, then the value of the data or your communications isn't that
great that, if somebody hacked you, the world would end," Kay
said.

By getting college students hooked on wireless access, technology
companies could be grooming a future market for their products, as
those students move into the corporate world.

"A secondary benefit is that students take their technology
experience with them when they graduate and apply it to new
problems," said Adam Wong, who helps shape the marketing and
technology of mobile products at IBM's PC division in Research
Triangle Park. "It's a multiplier effect."

Wong said corporate worries about trade secrets being stolen
have led many companies to ban wireless computing. That's why
IBM won't install wireless capacity in all its notebooks for at least
another year, he said.

But, he said, suppliers are working hard to improve security
standards.

"Long term, what will happen is the industry will have 100 percent
wireless notebooks because wireless will become as ubiquitous as
modems," Wong predicted.

Campuses are a great environment for wireless computing
because of their highly mobile, computer-savvy population that
demands access, Kay said. Plus, at some colleges, students supply
their own laptops, he said.

Building Meredith College's wireless network cost about $250,000
for access across more than a dozen dormitories, laboratories,
libraries, classrooms and administrative offices. The cost was
added to student tuition, which this year is $18,065 for a full-time
undergraduate student, said Bill Wade, Meredith's vice president
for business and finance.

Students use their notebooks in class or to conduct research on
the Internet while sprawled out on the lawns. Student-faculty
conversations that once required visiting a professor during office
hours are supplemented with e-mail or instant messaging.

Students in Beth Mulvaney's art history classes can, in the middle
of a class, access notes and images that are not available in
textbooks. When a student asks whether one artist's work was
influenced by another's, Mulvaney can pull up examples.

"Points, unless they can be illustrated, are lost," Mulvaney said.
"This technology makes it possible to take advantage of those
spontaneous questions to bring up the illustration and immediately
answer questions."

She credits the flexibility of wireless with improving academic
relationships and learning, noting that many of her students grew
up with computers and find it easy to relate online.

"They have more access than ever before. My office hours are
relatively unpopulated because they have access to me 24/7,"
Mulvaney said.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/business/6635740.htm

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Ink Cartridges or Refill Kits for Your HP, Epson, Canon or Lexmark
Printer at Myinks.com. Free s/h on orders $50 or more to the US & Canada. http://www.c1tracking.com/l.asp?cid=5511
http://us.click.yahoo.com/l.m7sD/LIdGAA/qnsNAA/61FxlB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/