We all know how sketchy these "
world's largest" claims can be, but Aruba Networks is dubbing its ongoing deployment of WiFi coverage across the gargantuous campus of
The Ohio State University just that. While
numerous cities (and even the entire country of
Singapore) are moving forward with far-reaching wireless
access plans, Aruba's "Mobile Edge solution" will reportedly be the most expansive WLAN by the time it's complete. Although the installation is only partially finished, 1,700 access points in over 28 buildings have already been lit, and Ohio State's IT department has plans to cover all 25 million square feet of the main campus with WiFi. Once complete, over 77,000 students and staff will have "ubiquitous wireless access to the university's networks" thanks to the "nearly 10,000" APs that will beam 802.11a/b/g all across OSU. Although the entire rollout won't be finalized until 2011, the 31 Buckeye residence halls will supposedly get blanketed within the next month, but we aren't sure if the 101,568 fans in The 'Shoe can expect unadulterated WiFi access to collegiate message boards or Facebook when
Michigan comes to town later this year.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Gregg @ Oct 9th 2006 2:00PM
Eddie George
Fullback
"THEEEEEEEE" Ohio State University
Never understood why everyone who went to OSU stresses the "The" before the school name. Do they teach you guys how to do that in a class during freshman year???
Micah @ Oct 9th 2006 10:21PM
Well when OSU was established in 1870 there was some completely pointless laws that all institutions of a certain type had to begin their name with "The." OSU was not an exception. For most of the history, though, it was omitted, until some university president somewhere in the past 30 or so years resurrected it, and I forget who it was. So it is a part of the name, has been forever, and now it's sort of a point of pride or something for alums.
yosh @ Oct 9th 2006 2:00PM
I'm surprised every college doesn't follow suit. I attended Rutgers Camden (5,000 students - small campus) and it had total wifi coverage. Believing that was the norm, I am now studying at Rutgers New Brunswick (Very large - 55,000 students) and the WiFi is appauling! Only a select few buildings have it. I'd have thought the natural course would be to invade the whole town/city with these WiFi waves. It's what I'd do. Rutgers is just a cheap, low-class state university anyway, so maybe my expectations are a little high. Hello Princeton.
G Money @ Oct 9th 2006 2:02PM
Dude Rutgers is a huge campus that sprawls across like 4 cities. You think implementing Wifi happens over night???
yosh @ Oct 9th 2006 2:12PM
If you're talking about Rutgers New Brunswick, then yes, it does have 4 sub-campuses in the New Brunswick Area. However, the largest distance (end to end) is at maximum only 10 miles.
Now if you're talking about Rutgers generally, yes, it does have 3 campuses - New Brunswick, Newark and Camden. These three are scattered evenly throughout New Jersey, so obviously I don't expect them to blanket the entire state in WiFi. I don't really care for the Newark/Camden (ghetto) campuses. I'd expect Rutger's flagship campus (new brunswick) with it's hi-tech computer equipment to have 100% wifi coverage. Honestly, how difficult is it? Give me a few 100 AP, I'll set it up. They're just a lazy state school. That's all.
Alden @ Oct 9th 2006 2:13PM
At MIT there's a wifi access point in _every_ room. More than one for the bigger rooms. Typically you'll get about 20 MIT AP's at once, it's pretty hilarious.
disciple83 @ Oct 9th 2006 2:25PM
The main reason for not implementing this on every campus is the simple fact that it costs an enormous amount of money for implementation. I went to Western Kentucky University, a small school to say the least, but it was public, so tuition was microscopic. The school just didn't have the funds to include something like this when I attended. They are trying to now, and all of the libraries and dorm's have wifi areas, but it doesn't include the whole building, and the signal stops when you leave the buildings. (Granted, the school is also trying to go 1-A in football too, good luck with that)
William Crabtree @ Oct 9th 2006 2:38PM
...and then they raise tuition another 30%.
Seriously..I wouldn't doubt that this happens. When I started at OSU my tuition was ~$1100 per quarter. By the time I graduated it was hitting ~$1900 with another raise set to go into effect the following quarter.
As far as the "THEEE" thing. I never figured it out myself. Maybe trying to make OSU seem more important or prestigious?
Zeke @ Oct 9th 2006 2:48PM
I'd hate to upgrade that thing to 802.11n.
disciple83 @ Oct 9th 2006 2:58PM
Its like people who go to University of Kentucky. Most everyone in America refers to that school as UK, while people in the Lexington and Louisville areas refer to it as U "uh" K, like UofK, or UofL (for Louisville)...It's preposterous.
csnoke @ Oct 9th 2006 3:10PM
Why is it we can get internet access across the entire campus but not air conditioning in the south dorms?
TheDr @ Oct 23rd 2007 12:33PM
Um, you're there to learn - internet and lan access facilitates that. A/C only makes you *comfy*. Maybe your mommie will stop by with a woobie and baba as a consolation.
JoeStalin @ Oct 9th 2006 3:15PM
THE Ohio State University has always been the official registered name of the univesity. It wasn't until football players started heavily emphasizing the 'THE' that everyone started saying. (Or getting pissy about it, see Ohio Univerisy.)
CSnoke, South Campus dorms are for people that don't get their registration sent in on time. :) God help you all in Baker and the south towers.
yelloj629 @ Oct 9th 2006 4:27PM
Or for cheap people like me. 4 years between Park and Baker.
JoeStalin @ Oct 9th 2006 3:17PM
Maybe students can use the new Wifi and Google maps to keep track of riot site / dumpster fires after M*ch*g*n this year?
Josh @ Oct 9th 2006 3:25PM
At the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus they have had the entire campus set up with wireless access points for at least 3 years.
Nick @ Oct 9th 2006 3:26PM
What exactly makes this the world's largest? I live in Tempe, AZ (pop almost 200,000) which already has border-to-border WiFi. Not to mention Arizona State University being in Tempe with its own network.
Lance Benz @ Oct 9th 2006 3:33PM
i go to Iowa State Unniversity and I never have a problem finding wireless access. Every building I have class in has wireless. It's quite nice but it gets annoying when I'm in lecture and the kid infront of you is surfing the web or playing a game instead of taking notes. It can get distracting.
Paul @ Oct 9th 2006 3:45PM
I'm in lecture right now at ISU doing just that.
Alex Aossey @ Oct 9th 2006 3:56PM
I'm a student at OSU... Yes, they're doing comprehensive wireless coverage here, most of it new this year. In my dorm last year, the only place wireless access could be obtained was on the floor where our lobby is located, and now there is an access point in each one of our Suite Clusters (my own - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v391/AossHat/WAP.jpg) of four rooms here. The only problem with it, is that any access here is pretty much garbage. The wireless is terribly unreliable. It's maybe a 70% chance that it's actually working at any given time.
Even the wired connections in the rooms are pretty awful. My 10/100/1000 card is absolutely useless, as we are all on a 10 Mbps network, that also is down for at least an hour, nearly once a day. Trust me, as a first hand user of OSU networking technology... everything they're doing here is not nearly enough, it's like we're living in 1996 connectivity-wise. I usually can't get any single download to run at more than 10 kB/s. They should, sometimes downloads float at under 1 kB/s.
Also, as for the whole "THE Ohio State University" basically I think we just like feeling important enough to deserve the extra word. Trust me, it annoys most of us students as much as it does the rest of you.
TFox @ Oct 9th 2006 4:12PM
M-Taiwan:
http://www.find.org.tw/eng/news.asp?msgid=164&subjectid=6&pos=0
Beat that...
james @ Oct 9th 2006 4:15PM
Actually, although there are 101,568 seats in Ohio Stadium, the attendance at Michigan was 105,539..
Dave @ Oct 9th 2006 4:16PM
ohio UNIVERSITY is way better. It has the Hocking Hills and THE Burrito Buggy. Plus, every dorm room has a computer and printer.
Mmmmmm..... b u r r i t o s .....
michelle Roman @ Oct 9th 2006 6:46PM
don't forget the stinky hippies
Eric @ Oct 9th 2006 4:19PM
I admittedly do not have a great deal of knowledge about WiFi technology or its limitations. To me it seems like someone needs to come up with a way to simply boost the signal of a few access points with many repeaters instead of having to install 10,000 access points. I'm thinking of a device that is not specific to 802.11 a/b/g/n that which simply extend the signal, then upgrading and maintaining this type a huge WiFi network becomes reasonable. Without this kind of innovation we should probably just start ensuring that the cell phone networks provide a strong signal in key area and just get the cost of the necessary data access plans reduced.
Just a thought
KE @ Oct 10th 2006 8:16AM
The problem with this is that one access point can only support about 20 concurrent users before it gets bogged down. So if you want to support 10,000 concurrent users, you need at least 500 access points. However, since this is only one of many things to consider when deploying a campus-wide wireless network, I'm sure the actual number of access points must be much higher.
Daniel Bier @ Oct 9th 2006 4:21PM
I'm in class at OSU right now... Stupid 100 level classes are ridiculously easy.
Wifi coverage is pretty good on most areas of campus, but often times the WPA (enterprise) authorization seems to be temperamental. Some buildings will work perfectly, but others will not authorize or take a while to authorize a standard connection.
Each building as about a 15 mbps connection, but it's shared so it varies extremely. Try using multistream download accelerators; that tends to help things. But going to the library or the Blackwell hotel is a great way to quickly get data... :)
Earl @ Oct 9th 2006 4:48PM
Our campus down here at ASU(about 6k students) has full coverage :D It's quite nice. I kinda figured it was done in some larger schools already. 77k is a really big school :| and I thought ASU was big compared to my hometown.. wow. This is pretty cool tho, a 1700 acre WLAN....
Shre @ Oct 9th 2006 4:54PM
Here at AggieLand WHOOOOP we got tamulink practically everywhere around campus. So its cool ^_^
Gig Em Aggies!!!!!!!!!
Dave @ Oct 9th 2006 5:01PM
There is truth in 2011 - WTF? 'Cause I can't see 802.11g being all that wonderful 5 years from now.
What will be funny is when some new Wifi tech comes along that requries like 10 access points to blanket Ohio State.
BTW, Rutgers NB covers two cities - New Brunswick and Piscataway.
tarvis @ Oct 9th 2006 5:02PM
At Virginia Tech, we have had a campus-wide WLAN for at least 5 years that I know of. Currently it covers %90 of our 2600 acre campus which is over 101 million square feet. We've been pioneering networks (w/ other groups) for years participating in Suranet, Internet2, Abilene, and the Lambda Rail.
Tom @ Oct 9th 2006 5:07PM
There needs to be a single Wifi AP with such tremendous amplitude that it covers the entire globe with Wifi... and causes cancer...
Robert Johnson @ Oct 9th 2006 5:32PM
Yea i dont see what is so special about this. I go to Clemson U (about 18000) and we have wifi all across campus in b, g, and a standards. I used to take my lappy with me and let shit dl while i was in class because the internet there is faster than humanly possible. Even better with LAN jack which are like always within throwing distance inside (and in the desks in alot of buildings)
fubar @ Oct 9th 2006 7:01PM
So OSU puts out press releases for WiFi coverage, while a Michigan professor is president and CEO of Internet2....
http://events.internet2.edu/speakers/speakers.php?go=bio&id=2
ryan hartlage @ Oct 9th 2006 8:08PM
wow, we're famous
but yeah, there's a lot of coverage, but our wpa bs takes forever to authenticate half of the time and if you aren't using windows or os x, punch yourself in the kidney and call it a day because it's a pain in the ass to get on wireless under linux
it is nice, though, in that you can get download speeds of around 4 to 5 times times what you can get in the dorms if you sit on the wireless in class (which i happen to be doing, what about math?)
MTigerV @ Oct 9th 2006 9:01PM
I believe this one is already larger
http://appl003.lsu.edu/ocsweb/otchome.nsf/$TextOnly/WLAN+Coverage+Map?OpenDocument
GEAUX TIGERS!
Russ @ Oct 9th 2006 9:17PM
I don't want to get into a mine's bigger argument but....
LSU campus sits on 3k more acres that OSU's but as far as sheer number of buildings and building square footage, it gets dwarfed. (www.osu.edu/map)
melty @ Oct 10th 2006 1:18AM
WOW I live on OSU campus and I knew nothing about this. I've been waiting for a WiFi Blanket on the campus ever since I started here. Hopefully, they let up on the WiFi security because right now i can't use my ds nor my sony clie online on campus. Oh well I'm graduting before its completed.
All Hail The Ohio State University!
Beer @ Oct 10th 2006 8:18AM
Interesting that the map they showed is of the Lima Campus...
Jnetty @ Oct 10th 2006 1:45PM
That's the same company that does the wireless at my school campus Adelphi U. But coverage is only about 70%
Matthew C. Barber @ Oct 13th 2006 9:47AM
Yes, the picture shown is incorrect. It is one of our branch campuses that pails in comparison to the size of main campus here in Columbus. http://www.osu.edu/map/ shows a nice image of the main campus that is going to be covered in entirety once this project has been completed.
del @ Oct 16th 2006 9:30AM
Sounds like a great plan for OSU. Not only is it expensive to do this, but at a place as laden in red tape as a state university, I can only imagine what the process was to get this rolling and pushed through all the right departments.
As for the "THE" OSU thing...OSU football players started doing it for Monday night, then Sunday night football broadcasts during player introductions. If I had to guess, it has more to do with OSU's marketing department getting some endorsement dollars flowing in their direction than anything else. If so, kudos to them since this thread started out talking about Wi-Fi.