By Gargoyle staff
Posted Friday, Oct. 6, 2006, The OG, news

Break out those laptops and fire up the Internet: Uni is now wireless.

The upgrading of Uni's computer network that began in the summer, while not yet complete, has reached the point where the wireless network in the main building is operational, according to Greg Smith, head of education technology and computer science.

Smith made the announcement in an e-mail sent to Uni faculty and staff on Wednesday.

“Those of you who have laptop computers with wireless capability can start using it immediately,” he said in his message.

The announcement turned out to be a bit premature. But after Smith worked out a few bugs, the network became functional today.

Smith noted that wireless users will have unblocked access to Internet resources, a continuation of Uni's current policy. Existing rules governing offensive or inappropriate computer activities will also apply to wireless users. New, possibly stricter, usage policies and procedures could be developed if circumstances warrant a change.

“We have every intention of upholding Uni's tradition of unencumbered access to a full range of ‘professional grade' information resources for our students, but we need to be able to respond to problems when they arise,” Smith said in his e-mail.

Besides providing wireless capability, Uni's upgrade will allow the school's nonportable computers to communicate 10 times faster on a new 100-megabit-per-second network.

According to Smith, he and technology support specialist Kathleen Booth will visit each computer in the building during the next few days to install new network drop cables from the machines to the nearest new network jacks. The cables will be easy to identify: They will be bright yellow, plugged into orange jacks.

As for the Math and Hue houses, an upgrade of their networks is expected to be completed before the end of the calendar year, according to Smith.