The first group of about 30 students sat the exam in early May '95. An associated experiment using commercial transmission technology is planned around the Lancaster area. This will connect the local schools to the university and its networks. What follows is a copy of the article that appeared in Lancaster ISS's Nexus. The group is installing radio communication systems that will enable people off campus to access the compuing and networking facilities provided by the university.
Computers send and receive small chunks of data carried in packets.
Relay machines are needed for long distance communication as the signals become too weak once you're far away from the transmitter. A relay simply receives data on one channel or frequency and retransmits it on another. Each piece of data therefore hops from the source to the destination via a set of relays. As well as providing a link to the university computers the radio network will be the basis for research into multimedia radio communications by Engineering's Communications Group, Computing's Distributed Multimedia Systems Group and members of Information System Services. The aim is to investigate how the notebook and pocket computers of the future could send and receive audio, data, images and even video using the rapidly improving technologies currently enabling the growing use of mobile phones.