Wireless Network Expansion

Rationale

Coverage

Quality wireless coverage in all occupied student rooms, offices, classrooms, and other public areas is important to provide the community a reliable, efficient service to use.   Quality coverage includes the strength of the wireless signal and the amount of bandwidth the users have available to accomplish their work. Design of the wireless network is important to ensure configurations are setup efficiently for wireless traffic to travel on the wired network. Roaming is also important in providing wireless coverage so users can stay connected to the wireless network when going from building to building.

Security

Security is a major concern with wireless networking. All Hamilton community members will need to authenticate to the wireless network. This will allow us to know who is using the network and will also enable encryption for the user so no one can eavesdrop on their network activity. Visitors will be allowed to use open, un-encrypted wireless access to the Internet but not Hamilton network resources. Visitors will need to accept a user agreement and might need to do some registration to use wireless. Any security we are using in the wireless network area, will eventually extend to the wired network so users connecting to the network via wired or wireless will have a similar experience. Physical security of all of the access points is also important to ensure a reliable wireless network for people to use.

Design

Design of the wireless network and integrating it into the wired network is very important to maintaining the overall reliability of the campus network. We need to ensure the wireless network design is compatible with our current wired network design and can be incorporated into our existing security and monitoring systems.

Management

Managing the wireless network security and infrastructure is important to maintaining overall network reliability. Central management tools will need to be implemented to manage access points, provide reporting, detect rogue wireless networks, develop security policies, etc. Interference issues may also cause reliability problems with the wireless network. Advanced support for the network will be provided by external companies. Hardware maintenance agreements will also be needed on critical pieces of the wireless infrastructure.

Support

Supporting the campus community and visitors in using wireless networking responsibly is very important. The wireless network is not a replacement for the wired network, so users will need to know to use the wired network for high bandwidth applications. Users will also need support on setting up their wireless clients to use security properly and may also need assistance with coverage and connections issues. 

Backup Service

Wireless bridges will provide temporary network connectivity between buildings in the event of a major fiber cable break or other building disaster. The bridges will operate at very limited bandwidth (approximately 30 to 54 Mbps), but with the proper access rules setup, we will only allow priority traffic over these temporary links (access to read e-mail, access blackboard, etc.). The bridges will operate as normal access points and then be converted to bridges in the event of a disaster.

You can E-mail the Network Services Team at:ns@hamilton.edu


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