But some college administrators whose institutions have tried wireless say the technology isn't quite ready for prime time. Many wireless services available today operate at slower speeds than standard network connections, and some of the systems have difficulty handling the traffic generated by classrooms full of students all surfing the Internet at the same time. Some early wireless experiments on campuses seem to have had only moderate success, although those systems use an older technology with slower connection speeds. The University of California's campuses at Santa Cruz and Berkeley were among the first institutions to work with a company called Metricom to offer wireless-modem service. In those systems, which have been in place since 1995, the wireless service is managed by Metricom, and the universities simply endorse it.
Officials say student participation has been lower than anticipated.
Such new systems, operated by the universities themselves, won't replace standard networks, administrators say, but will instead give added flexibility to students and professors, who will be able to open their laptop computers anywhere on the campus and instantly enter cyberspace. Most colleges that are now experimenting with the idea are setting up wireless LANs, or local-area networks. The systems work much like cordless telephones. The signal's range is usually only about 500 to 1,000 feet. The access point is wired to a standard campus network.