Two Houses To Launch Wireless

In what represents an important milestone in an effort to provide all undergraduates with full wireless Internet access inside their dorm rooms by the end of 2005, Currier House and Leverett Towers are now almost completely liberated from the hassles of Ethernet jacks and cables.

According to Director of Residential Computing Kevin S. Davis ’98, these two residences are pilot locations for the project to implement wireless Internet throughout all dorm rooms in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

All of the House dining halls and libraries, as well as common areas in all residences—including freshman dorms—have had wireless since the spring of 2004.

“At this point, we’re very close to launching Currier House and the Leverett Towers with wireless service,” Davis said. Davis, who is also a Crimson editor, added that he expected to announce the official launch of wireless Internet to the House Masters of the pilot residences within the next week or two.

“We have most of the access points up, but we don’t have every single one,” he said. “We don’t want to have a situation where we announce that [the signal is] live but you still have a few suites that aren’t getting it yet.”

He said efforts are underway in other Houses to determine where equipment needs to be installed and that they have made progress toward providing full wireless access in “the vast majority” of student residences.

The recent efforts reflect the FAS computer services’ response to heightened student demand for full wireless access—comparable to that of several other colleges.

“With laptop ownership as high as it is...increasingly, [students] are so used to wireless that they want to be wireless in their rooms as well,” Davis said. “That gives students a lot of flexibility.”

Leverett Towers and Currier, two of the newer housing structures on campus, were chosen to be the first buildings with wireless because they best met the criteria for installation

“Probably the biggest factor was that the construction of the houses was very different,” Davis said.

Installing new wiring in older buildings would necessarily interfere more with students’ suites—with the potential for “dust, plaster, and paint getting all over people’s clothes,” Davis said.

In order to avoid this disruption of students’ lives, Davis said, wireless equipment will be installed in some of the older buildings during times of the year when few or no students are around.

“We don’t want to be disruptive within the residences unless it’s absolutely necessary,” Davis said.

Though some students in Currier and the Leverett Towers may already be able to get a signal in their suites, Davis said residential wireless Internet is not officially up and running yet.

“Once we announce the service as being live, if students have any questions, complaints or suggestions, they should definitely let us know,” he said.

Students living in Currier who already have access to the wireless signal, such as Anne J. Hillier ’06, are finding it to be a helpful amenity.

“I think it makes life a lot more convenient,” she said.

But Davis said that students who prefer their cables have nothing to fear from the encroachment of the wireless vanguard.

“We’re not going to take away the wired infrastructure from the rooms. A lot of students will find it more convenient to plug right in.”

>––Crimson staff writer Matthew S. Lebowitz can be reached at mslebow@fas.harvard.edu