DeKalb | Wireless Internet access has been added to the lounges on each floor of Stevenson, Grant and Neptune for the Fall 2006 semester.

NIU Housing and Dining requested the additional Wi-Fi locations to make Internet more accessible to students wishing to work on projects and also those using the Internet for entertainment.

“Students, faculty and staff are all using, asking for and expecting anywhere, anytime access to online resources,” said Cindy Phillips, Director of NIU Telecommunications Services. “Wireless access to the network is one step to providing this type of access. Mobile communications is becoming the preferred way to access resources.”

Students and faculty can find access points in the public sections of residence halls as well as other public meeting places on campus, including certain rooms in the Holmes Student Center and the Campus Life Building.

To be able to access wireless Internet at a Wi-Fi site, a laptop or wireless device with a wireless network card and Windows 2000 or Windows XP is needed. NIU currently transmits at 11 megabits per second.

Phillips explained students will notice some differences between wireless and wired connections regarding performance. A typical MP3 song, which is a 4MB file, will download about a minute slower using a wireless connection.

Providing wireless access points for students and faculty is a new way for NIU to maintain the availability of information. The standard rate to have an access point installed is $150 and a monthly service fee of $66 also applies. NIU is the official provider of the service, and the service fee is paid to ITS. Funding for the residence hall connections are provided by students living in the halls who pay a technology access fee each semester.

Wireless users must remember the speed and performance at a wireless site will depend greatly on the amount of users attempting to access, as well as the weather conditions. Each access point is equipped to handle about five users in ideal weather. If weather conditions are poor, performance will decrease. Also, as the number of users increases, the performance will decrease.

Wired Internet, which is available in residence hall rooms, provides students with a reliable method of downloading large files. Performance also stays relatively constant compared to wireless. Wireless Internet is mainly meant for what is called informal, or casual traffic such as browsing, checking e-mail and instant messaging. Large downloads are best left for wired connections because of the risk of degraded performance at a wireless site.

As far as additional plans for access points, Kelly Wesener, executive director of Housing and Dining says nothing is in the works quite yet, but suggestions are welcome.

“We are always happy to have recommendations from students for how we can best meet their technology needs,” Wesener said.