Bryn Mawr College is committed to providing high speed campus network and Internet access to all our community members. Each student living in a primary residence hall is provided a 10/100Mbps Ethernet outlet for direct connection to campus and Internet data resources. Students electing to live in Glenmede, Batten, and Perry are provided more limited data service as these buildings are not connected to the College’s multi-gigabit network.Most public spaces on campus have either 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports or 802.11B wireless access available.

In addition to the wired network, wireless networking has been deployed to a number of locations around campus. There is a map of campus public wireless hotspots available at www.brynmawr.edu/computing/docs/wireless_access_map.shtml. The Park Science Center, Collier Library, and surrounding grounds have excellent coverage, as do the Campus Center and the Guild Computing Center. Canaday and Carpenter Libraries have good coverage on their public floors. The living rooms and common spaces of most residence halls and Glenmede have good coverage. Perry, and Batten are not wired but do have extended wireless support.

Unapproved use of personally-owned wireless access points or routers in the residence halls and other college locations is not permitted. This restriction is due to two main factors. The first is the requirement of the wired network to remain within strict timing and distance specifications. Unchecked expansion of the wired network can lead to difficult-to-trace building-wide service disruptions. The second is the technical limitations of wireless networking equipment, specifically the limited availability of non-interfering radio frequencies. The FCC has only allocated 11 radio frequencies in the 2.4GHz spectrum for all 2.4GHz wireless devices. Cordless headsets, cordless phones, wireless access points, and other consumer wireless devices all operate on these same radio frequencies and interference is common.

Last year Bryn Mawr Networking conducted a pilot program of working with civic minded students to build a wireless network in the dorms by sharing their personally owned access points, while limiting the number of devices in order to allow reliability. Interested students must follow a registration process, and the device must meet the necessary minimum criteria (see below). Collaboration of this type is a Bryn Mawr tradition, and Networking is looking forward to another successful year of this program with a broader group of students.

Participants must have an interest in technology, and in being part of providing the shared service described. Networking and Information Services will not provide support for devices or wireless services that result from this program. Information Services is offering this program as a means of facilitating a collaborative environment which benefits the community. Enrolling in the program indicates a willingness to research how to configure a wireless device to the guidelines provided. Device owners will also be responsible for maintaining security on their device, including applying any vendor required security upgrades. Owners of unregistered or misconfigured devices will have their network privileges suspended pending notification and corrective action.

Device Requirements for this year: 802.11b/g compliance (“Super G” or “N” access points must support the 802.11G standard to be accepted), variable transmitter power, WPA or WPA2 encryption support, network bridging, and NAT (network address translation) support.

Bryn Mawr College does not recommend any particular make or model. It is the student’s responsibility to verify that their equipment meets the requirements. Networking will work with students to a limited extent in determining the applicability of a device if documentation is unclear. Be aware that most low-end devices provided by DSL and cable providers do not meet these requirements.

Interested students should contact David Bertagni, Head of Networking and Telecommunications by e-mail, dbertagni@brynmawr.edu, to apply. Configuration details will be provided to students upon acceptance into the program.