Wireless at Last
April 1, 2006
This week, Tufts Information and Technology Services (ITS) put the finishing touches on a comprehensive wireless Internet access point covering the Medford/Somerville campus. The new system, which is currently being stress-tested and will be turned on for students starting next Monday, provides a fast IEEE 802.11b and g connection from Professors Row to the corner of Alumni Fields, and everywhere in between.
The new network (nicknamed JumboNet) comes as something of a surprise to current Tufts students. As recently as the beginning of this semester, Tufts administrators had refused repeated requests from the TCU Senate and student media groups (including this very page) to implement a campus-wide wireless network, citing Internet security risks and the rapid pace of technological change. Although the cost of hardware and labor for setting up the network was estimated to be less than $50,000, the administration had, until now, balked at the suggestion that Tufts needed or could afford such a system.
With JumboNet, Tufts has placed itself on an ever-growing list of schools to have gone completely wireless, including Dartmouth College, Carnegie Mellon University, Trinity University, and the University of Minnesota. According to a 2005 survey by Intel Corporation, 37 of the country’s top 50 schools now have 100% wireless network coverage on campus. Starting next week, Tufts will no longer be one of the dozen remaining bulwarks of obsolescence on that list.
Tufts tour guides, who have long been fibbing to visitors that the campus will be going wireless “any day now,” can breathe a sigh of relief. Likewise Tufts’ engineering students, who had been wondering how something so easy could remain undone for so long. The Observer applauds the completion of JumboNet, delayed though it may be, and we eagerly anticipate having the ability to Facebook our friends at the Daily while waiting in line at Health Services or playing frisbee golf on the President’s Lawn.
We just wish that JumboNet really existed and we hadn’t just made it up. Happy April Fool’s Day!