May 2, 2008
Wireless Access Is Predicted to Surge on College Campuses
The market research company, ABI Research, predicts that 99 percent of North American colleges will have the current standard of wireless access, 802.11n, by 2013, up from 2.3 percent now. Among the reasons for deploying Wi-Fi is that colleges see it as a recruitment tool, according to ABI.
But most colleges already have wireless. They just haven’t migrated to the current “n” standard, and the standards change frequently with the emergence of new technologies, says Kenneth C. Green, of The Campus Computing Project.—-Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Friday May 2, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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The research conducted by M. L. Hsieh (Monmouth U., NJ) and myself from 2003-2007 focused on wireless access and library laptops in academic libraries. {Shameless plug here}.
In a very few years, students have come to regard wireless access as a given even though the technology remains problematic for many libraries and can sap human resources.
Our research fed but could not address my own suspicion that many problems are the result of hasty &/or poorly planned installations (because it’s just too easy to “just do it”?).
The “Should we upgrade to IEEE 802.11n?” question is not a simple one. Kenneth Green hits on one reason: even newer technologies are just around the corner – or so we are led to believe. But pulling in the opposite direction is the simple fact that “g” is now the “installed base”- something that can be very hard to dislodge. (Windows, anyone?)
All we can know for sure is that, all too soon, we’ll hear students muttering, “This network is so pokey compared to Starbucks.”
— H. A. Holden Jun 2, 12:13 PM #