Computing officials say a technical standard adopted last year marked the turning point for campus wireless networks. In September 1999, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers adopted IEEE 802.llb, a set of technical specifications for building wireless network components that most manufacturers since then have followed. As was the case years ago with competing videotape standards, once one standard triumphed, the technology became a less risky investment, says Charles R. Bartel, the director of operations for computing services at Carnegie Mellon. About the same time the engineers agreed on a single standard, prices for wireless-network components began to drop. On a wireless campus, portable computers and even some desktop PC's are equipped with communications cards called wireless adapters.
Technicians install the access points on the interior and exterior walls of campus buildings.
Each access point, typically the size of a book, houses a transmitter, a receiver, an antenna, and a piece of equipment that acts as a bridge to the campus's wire-based network. A single access point can serve many users. Depending on the type of computer tasks they need to accomplish, Mr. Bartel says, up to 30 students at a time can connect to the network through the same wireless access point by simply logging onto the network. But a student with hiswireless PC antenna can be several hundred feet from an access point and remain connected to the network, because the wireless radio signal carries through walls, floors, and ceilings. After deciding that wireless had become a practical option, University of Southern Mississippi computing officials have spent the past six months installing and testing a wireless network.