Who Knew?

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Who Knew? is intended to inform and entertain by publishing answers to questions of campus interest posed by faculty and staff. E-mail questions to wisweek@news.wisc.edu or send to Wisconsin Week, 19 Bascom Hall.

Has the campus wireless network expanded?
It might seem sometimes, in the age of e-mail on cell phones and text messaging, that eventually everything will receive wireless data, and keeping up with business, family and money electronically will be a minute-by-minute task. E-mail will beam down to your car on highways whether you want it to or not, your wallet will be replaced by a small plastic card with a hologram likeness of Alan Greenspan, and, very slowly, actually writing anything down on paper will seem like a waste of time.

Maybe, but not yet.

On campus, the Division of Information Technology launched the wireless network in fall 2000 in several buildings on campus, including Memorial Union, Bascom and Helen C. White. Today the service has expanded to 15 locations, including the Social Science Building and Wendt Library. The service is simple to use: with a wireless network card that installs in a laptop for about $75 to 100, users log on by going to a URL and entering their net ID and password. Anyone with a UW ID and e-mail address can use the service.

At the time of launch, UW–Madison was far beyond most university institutions in the realm of wireless. Since then, wireless Internet access has boomed, from area companies building in-house networks for employees, to high-speed access in downtown Madison coffeehouses.

Brian Rust of DoIT notes that usage of the university’s network has been steady, but not astonishing. There are no plans to expand, Rust says, noting that DoIT will probably “wait and observe how the demand curve catches up with the availability.”

Rust says DoIT made a conscious decision not to install the network in classrooms, where checking online for stock prices or sports gossip could distract from the “real time” lecture. Instead, the university has focused on other more static access points to get online, such as computer kiosks set up on campus.

Laptop owners were asked in a recent survey why they might not use the convenient campus wireless network to get connected. Among the responses, not surprisingly: carrying a laptop around is a hassle.

For information on DoIT’s wireless computing, visit http://www.doit.wisc.edu/wireless/.