Personal computer manufacturers recently adopted a standard for wireless networks, and a test run this spring based on the new standard yielded promising results. When the InfoCommons purchased eight Power Mac G4s, Apple donated an AirPort Base Station and several AirPort Cards to Emory. To verify the reliability, we constructed a simple test. The eight G4s are on the second level of the InfoCommons and Library Systems set up the base station near them. Since mid-February half of the G4s have been running with standard, wired connections, the other half with wireless connections.
People appear to sit at wired or wireless stations indiscriminately.
There have been no more problems reported with the wireless computers than with the wired stations. And no problems have been traced to the wireless technology. But the reliability of the technology is only part of the equation-the more interesting question is whether members of the Emory community find it useful to carry their computers around, connecting to the network wherever they are. To test this we made wireless available in multiple locations, put the technology in the hands of students and watched what happened. Seven students participated in the test using Mac iBooks with the AirPort cards or Mac PowerBooks with Lucent's WaveLan card, connected through the same InfoCommons base station from the first test.