After two years of communication with concerned students, Barnard has developed a dorm-by-dorm plan to create a wireless campus. While currently only Sulzberger and Elliot are wireless, the rest of the Quad and 616 will be outfitted with wireless hubs this summer. Plimpton, 620, and 600 will follow suit during the coming academic year.
For students, the lack of reliable internet access has proved a source of frustration for some time. An SGA survey conducted two yeas ago found that students were concerned with the quality of internet connectivity on campus, though until now little action has been taken to improve these conditions.
“It doesn’t work in my room,” Christina Jobe, BC ’11 and Reid Hall resident, said. “In the beginning of the year it worked slowly and then it stopped. It’s miserable. The farther away you get from the Sulz side, the worse the connection gets.” Jobe added, “When they were bribing me to come, they said the campus was wireless... it’s not.”
The wireless that does exist at Barnard is spotty. “If everyone’s on YouTube or people are file-sharing, we’re gonna take a punch,” said John, a help desk attendant who declined to use his last name, adding “if it’s in a dorm and someone turns on a microwave or uses a wireless phone handset, it kills it [the wireless].”
“The college has recognized the need for wireless connection in the dormitories,” Thomas Sobczak, director of the Office of Management Information and Network Services and CC ’85, said. “Wireless connection is more convenient for students and less expensive for the College.”
The new internet configuration will provide for wireless access in all but two of the college’s dorms. According to Sobczak, the administration has no current plans to provide Cathedral Gardens or 110 with wireless capability because those residence halls are not owned by Barnard and, due to the distance, it would be difficult to establish a firm connection between the buildings and campus.
According to Sobczek, the condition of the college’s old internet wiring has been degrading over time. “Wiring corrodes. Animals get into wiring. People knock boxes off the walls and damage jacks. It was a choice for the College between rewiring the buildings or putting in wireless.”
While safety and reliability are issues of concern to the MINS staff, Sobczek said that though “wired internet service is faster, more reliable and more secure than wireless ... because of changes in technology, wireless is getting faster, more
reliable and more secure.”
“The SGA has been working on wireless,” Sarah Besnoff, BC ’09 and President of SGA, said, explaining that most of this effort has been directed towards the Board of Trustees. Besnoff added that “the administration has been really responsive in terms of creating more hot spots around campus.”
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