Access to information, any time, any where, has become a key aspect in the life of students, faculty, and staff at NDSU. The primary medium for accessing IT resources and services on campus is the wired network, but some areas that students use extensively, such as the Memorial Union, the Library, and many classrooms, have only limited network access. While it is possible to wire such locations, there are significant financial and physical barriers to doing so. Instead, NDSU will be launching a wireless network initiative in 2005 to expand network access to all academic learning spaces on campus. However, building and maintaining a comprehensive wireless network will require new sources of funding.
Faculty, students and staff have been involved in helping ITS develop a funding model and an implementation strategy to build and manage a wireless network that will cover at least 30 campus buildings, including all academic buildings. Under this model, funding will come from two sources - the ITS budget and the student Technology Fee. A key part of the funding model is the elimination of the campus modem pool. The University spends a large amount of money each year to support an old, inefficient, and unacceptably expensive modem pool. Eliminating the modem pool will allow money to be reallocated from the ITS budget and the Technology Fee to the wireless networking initiative. The Technology Fee Advisory Committee also voted to provide additional necessary funding to help support the wireless initiative in the future.
The campus modem pool will be removed in May 2005. People accustomed to using the campus modem pool to access the University network have several other options available to them. Dial-up access to the Internet is now a commodity service with many commercial providers offering service alternatives at low prices. Broadband technologies (DSL, satellite, and cable modem) are rapidly supplanting dial-up access as affordable and reliable means to reach the campus network from off-campus. The funding model for the wireless initiative will reallocate funds currently used for dial-up modems to build and manage the wireless network.
NDSU will move to the Next Level in network access by exchanging a nearly obsolete network connectivity option for a modern information access strategy based on wireless networking. This Next Level in network access will allow NDSU to improve and expand its IT services to provide the foundation for teaching excellence and an expanding research program. Wireless networking will also enhance the University's competitiveness in recruiting new students and retaining the ones we already have. Over the last few years, many of our university peers have deployed wireless networks.
A comprehensive wireless network at NDSU will help keep the University at the forefront of teaching, learning, and research.