UCLA pilot-testing wireless network

By Edward Chiao
DAILY BRUIN SENIOR STAFF
[email protected]

Students will soon be able to trade their Ethernet cables for
wireless network cards. UCLA is going wireless ““ part of it,
at least.

In an effort to bring the Internet to UCLA students, staff and
faculty at any time and any place, Communications Technology
Services (CTS) created the Campus Wireless Pilot Initiative last
November, a pilot test for a wireless network across campus. The
test has 200 participants and is currently conducted in a few
select areas of North Campus. Plans are in progress to expand to
South Campus this summer and accommodate an additional 75 student,
staff and faculty participants.

“We hope the test will give us insight into how it
enhances the university experience and our ability to provide
wireless networking on a campus-wide scale,” said Gwendolyn
McCurry, project manager for the Wireless Pilot Initiative.

If the pilot program is successful, a university-wide wireless
network serving all of UCLA’s students, staff and faculty
could soon follow. However, there are no immediate plans nor budget
allocations for a full-scale deployment of a wireless campus
network.

The original time table for the pilot program was extended
through “at least summer 2002, to continue testing for the
capability and robustness of the technology,” McCurry
said.

Currently, the Wireless Pilot Initiative is being tested on the
first and third floors of the Charles E. Young Research Library,
the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden and North Campus eating and
student congregation areas. The program is now expanding to the
first floor indoor and outdoor facilities in the Ackerman Union
Terrace food court.

Expanding the network will be relatively simple because the
wireless network won’t have to be built from the ground up.
It will instead build off of UCLA’s Campus Backbone Network,
the existing wired network. Wireless Access Points (APs), which are
wired to the Backbone, will send and receive information via radio
signals to and from connected computers equipped with wireless
network cards. These APs perform the same function as the typical
“router” in a wired computer.

The APs for the pilot program will all use the IEEE 802.11b
wireless Local Area Network (LAN) specification, which operates at
the industry standard for wireless transmission rates.

In theory, that means wireless technology will allow users to
send and receive information at a bit-rate roughly 100 times faster
than a standard 56k modem, though actual speeds are often limited
by underground parking structures, concrete buildings and other
surrounding environments.

Participants in the pilot study complained of “varied
signal strength on steel tables” in North Campus common
areas, according to an interim survey conducted by the Wireless
Pilot Initiative. Other complaints included “varying signal
strength on account of weather conditions” and security
fears. While McCurry’s team is looking into the technical
complaints, she assures that a campus-wide wireless network can be
safe for all users.

“I think (802.11b) is a standard that’s used and
supported quite extensively, and I have all the confidence in its
(security),” McCurry said.

Because wireless technology communicates through radio waves
traveling in free space, the information sent through the air is
susceptible to hackers whose motives are to intercept the radio
signals to monitor or steal users’ files.

The Wireless Pilot Initiative, however, uses the secure Virtual
Private Network (VPN) technology, which has two levels of security
to combat hackers. The first level requires all users to log in
with their user ID and password. This ensures only students, staff
and faculty at UCLA can use the wireless network. The second level
of security involves data encryption software, which uses
algorithms to scramble outgoing information from the sender and
unscramble the incoming signal when it reaches the receiver.

While this is the first time UCLA students, staff and faculty
will have access to a campus-wide wireless network, for some at
UCLA these networks are nothing new. Several departments at UCLA
have been experimenting with localized wireless networks for their
own use.

The problem with these smaller wireless networks is security and
interference. Because private networks are not regulated by CTS or
secured by their private network, they are susceptible to hackers
and interference from other nearby wireless networks.

But most students will never worry about the technical and
security issues involved with wireless networks. Many are already
waiting to embrace the possibilities of a secure university-wide
wireless network at UCLA.

“If they can do it, and show me that they can do it
securely, then I would buy a wireless network card right
away,” said fourth-year computer science and engineering
student Nicholas Sun.

“It allows for a lot more flexibility, and I would use it
anywhere I’m studying ““ in a quiet corner of campus or
whenever it’s nice outside,” Sun said.

To apply and to get more information on the pilot program, go
to: www.bol.ucla.edu/wireless.