UAA Goes Wireless

Wireless networking gives students, staff, and faculty Wireless Laptop

access to the campus data network and the Internet without physically connecting to a data outlet.

Locations (Hotspots)

Wireless network access is currently available at the Campus Center, covering north and south cafeterias, the student lounge, study rooms and most of the hallway locations. Access will soon be available at the following locations with Release dates being announced throughout November:

University Center
Commons
Administration Building
Engineering atrium
CAS Building

Look for Hotspot signs posted at all locations. Users can expect connectivity within 150 feet of each sign.

Network Access

Two types of access will be possible at most hotspot locations; Open and Secure:

“Open” wireless access will permit users to use any commonly available wireless network interface card, or NIC, with a laptop computer or PDA. This connection allows access to most web sites and resources.

“Secure” wireless access will require users to login with their username and password (same as e-mail and Blackboard). Once connected, users will have encrypted secure connections and will have complete access to the UAA network. Network access will be identical to that of a wired connection. See related pages below for system requirements.

Technology

UAA Wireless technology is based on the 802.11 or IEEE 802.11 standard. 802.11 is a type of radio technology that has been developed by the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers). Today, the wireless network uses the 802.11b standard which operates in the 2.4 GHz frequency spectrum with 11 Mb/s of shared media bandwidth. This network will migrate to the 802.11a standard in the future which uses the 5 GHz spectrum and is capable of 54 Mb/s shared media bandwidth.

Any 802.11b network card can be used to connect to the “Open” wirelesss locations. In order to connect to the secure network, however, a LEAP (lightweight extensible authentication protocol) compliant NIC is required. IT Services only recommends and supports the Cisco 352 Aironet NIC using Windows 2000 or Windows XP and Apple Airport cards using 10.1 or higher.

How to connect to the UAA Wireless Network using Mac OS 10.1 or higher

Wireless Network Overview