by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
If you want to download "Borat" and Fall Out Boy music videos on UNM's wireless Internet network, be ready to answer to fellow students who want to check their MySpace accounts.
If someone uses the connection to download large files, it will dominate the bandwidth and prevent others from using the Internet, said Paula Loendorf, director of ITS Communication Network Services.
"It's well-suited for e-mail and Web browsing," she said. "When you get into those larger files and audio and video, it's likely to suck up the bandwidth for one user."
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
By the middle of 2008, ITS plans to have about 85 percent of Main Campus covered with free wireless Internet.
The University already has about 30 percent of campus covered, including Dane Smith Hall and the SUB.
The project was funded by a $750,000 donation from the New Mexico Educators Federal Credit Union.
Loendorf said ITS does not know if it will be possible to block large downloads on the network.
Wireless Internet provides convenience, but its power is no match for a cable,
Loendorf said.
"Wireless is meant to provide mobility for people, but it usually almost always has lower performance than a wired connection," she said. "A wireless connection is probably a decade behind wired in terms of performance."
ITS sent a survey across UNM Webmail on March 8 to see where students want wireless access on campus.
Students' priorities are the first of four phases in which clusters of wireless access points will be installed around UNM,
Loendorf said.
Loendorf said most students' choices are in Cluster B, which includes Hokona Hall dormitory, Smith Plaza south of Zimmerman Library and the Kiva
Auditorium.
Some of the areas already have wireless access, and ITS has to check to make sure those networks will be compatible with its own, she said.
Installation of Cluster B will begin at the end of the month, Loendorf said.
People should be e-mailing from the Duck Pond by fall, she said.
Loendorf said the first phase of the project aims to get coverage outside of buildings.
"We'll be installing where mobility is important," she said. "We'll have a certain reasonable level of coverage, looking at outdoor and open areas and some interior areas where people congregate, such as
lobbies and conference rooms."
Loendorf said she doesn't know what the bandwidth will be, but there can be 20 connections per access point for
casual use.
"It's a start of a wirelessconnection on campus," she said. "It's not going to be
heavy duty."
ITS is looking at how many
access points it has the funding to install and where it can place them for maximum efficiency,
Loendorf said.
The University of Arizona spent between $8 million and $10 million on its wireless network, and students pay a $50 technology fee there to help foot the bill, Loendorf said.
"We, of course, don't have that sort of funding at this point," she said. "To get the money we're getting from the credit union is
incredible."
Student Tyson Eakman said it will be nice to have
wireless access.
"It's just like cell phones," he said. "You don't need a cell phone, but it makes your life a whole hell of a lot easier."
