Wireless Network and Internet Access Continues to Grow at IU Bloomington, IUPUI

BLOOMINGTON, INDIANA — In the next few months, over 1000 wireless access points will be enabled at IU Bloomington and IUPUI to provide secure, convenient wireless network access for laptop computer and personal digital assistant (PDA) users on those campuses. The additional access points, added to the 400 access points already available will enable Indiana University to fulfill a key objective of its Strategic Plan for Information Technology. The project's goal, spearheaded by University Information Technology Services (UITS), is to provide complete wireless coverage on both campuses in the next year.

As technology and its users become more sophisticated, University officials are charged with providing wireless access that is secure, robust, and convenient. IU has been providing wireless network access in several popular locations at the campuses in Bloomington and Indianapolis for two years. The move toward blanket coverage will continue to meet the needs of students, faculty, and staff, whether they are in conference rooms, offices, the University Library at IUPUI, or Dunn Meadow at IU Bloomington.

"We have found that use of mobile technology – laptop computers and PDAs – has been slowed by the lack of a consistent, broadly available access to the network," said Brian D. Voss, Associate Vice President for Telecommunications in Indiana University's Office of the Vice President for Information Technology and CIO.

"Without pervasive access to network services and resources, these devices are essentially very expensive notepads," he added. "In order to encourage their use and ability to improve teaching, learning, and research endeavors we simply had to come up with a 'full coverage' solution."

Wireless access allows computer users access to Indiana University's many network services as well as the Web. Students, faculty, and staff are now able to more conveniently log into Oncourse (IU's online learning environment) to gather information from professors and classmates, register for classes, or check e-mail from a secure, network connection just as easily as accessing popular Internet Web sites.

Indiana University secures wireless communications via Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. A VPN allows a computer user to temporarily create or join a private network across an existing public network in a secure manner. It does so by creating an encrypted "tunnel" over which communication travels. A VPN connection is as stable and secure as a modem or hardwire connection.

IU had previously been using VPN services for more than a year, providing secure access to University resources from off-campus, (high-speed Internet services, such as cable modem or DSL services used by a growing number of IU affiliates to access the internet and IU from their homes). The VPN thus does "double duty" to secure the full range of "off-net" connections, now including wireless access.

"The Virtual Private Network is a key component in our layered security approach, because it provides for authentication and secure communications for users connecting from off-campus. It is relatively easy to configure and use and is consistent with our interest in balancing security and convenience," said Mark S. Bruhn, Chief IT Security and Policy Officer at Indiana University. "Having already deployed VPN to support off-net connections, our network staff had a jump-start on using it for this new wireless initiative, and it also means that our users don't have to configure and learn yet another connection mechanism with a separate set of credentials."

Over the course of the next 12 months, more than 1,000 wireless access points will have been installed across the two core campuses. The first phase, to be completed by the end of Spring 2003 semester, will focus primarily on locations that benefit students. The second phase – already underway and planned for completion by the end of 2003 – will augment that coverage by providing access to areas frequented by faculty and staff. A final phase – which may be implemented in parallel with preceding phases – could provide broad coverage of all areas using advanced phase array antenna technology.

"Indiana University has already deployed a significant amount of wireless – but our goal is to ensure that wherever our students might be on campus, they can make use of their portable computing devices to access the rich array of resources available within the University, and across the Internet world-wide" said Voss.

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