Teaching wireless 101: American University lights up a wireless campus

Telecommunications Americas, Dec, 2004 by Sean Buckley

It's a funny thing about networks: They didn't seem to notice there was a telecom downturn. They still needed to serve customers and carry innovative new services to attract even more customers. And they needed to do that with less investment and TLC from their owners than they had seen in quite a few years.

Service providers that took advantage of the downturn to better their networks and provide innovative new services are now poised to reap the rewards. In this special Technologies@Work feature, we profile five of the many shining examples of how a little investment--and a lot of teamwork--can go a long, long way.

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If there's any downside to providing ubiquitous wireless coverage on a college campus, it's that it takes a lot of wire to go wireless, says Carl Whitman, executive director of Enterprise Operations for Washington, D.C.-based American University. Whitman estimates the university pulled about 13 miles of coax to get its campus wireless system up and running. But with that challenge behind it, Whitman is confident this system will reap many rewards.

In 2001, AU realized that its student population's use of wireless voice alone would soon surpass the use of landline voice service. The university based this on industry research that forecasted that by 2005, 70 percent to 85 percent of college students would be wirelessly enabled for voice alone.

Based on that research, in 2001 AU set out on a mission to wire its 35-building campus for wireless. As one could imagine, there were some fundamental drivers to build this wireless network, including just improving basic cell phone coverage in the university's residence halls, where there were coverage gaps. In addition, the network could also be useful in the classroom as it provides instant connectivity for downloading presentations and other activities. Such a network has benefits not only to every new freshman class that shows up with a wireless device, but also the faculty. As part of this program, AU has devoted funds to equip its faculty with wireless-enabled laptops and related equipment to enhance their teaching and research experience.

"When we first started down this path, the notion that cell phones might be a big contributor to the wireless [data] space was questionable," said Whitman. "It was a leading-edge idea at the time, but we wanted to make sure we were ready for the future. We did not want to put roadblocks in anyone's way for how they adopt this technology by giving students and faculty every opportunity to use wireless creatively in the classroom."

At the same time, the way universities provided local and long-distance phone service and the business model that supported that to its students was changing. Traditionally, a university would provide these services in the dorms, which would be subsidized by reselling the long-distance service via a provider. A university would then engage in a revenue share with the provider. However, with the decline of long-distance margins and the ever-growing dominance of cell phones, that model has all but disappeared.

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Now, AU will replicate a similar revenue-sharing partnership with its wireless service provider partners, Cingular and T-Mobile, who would then offer special AU wireless packages at a discounted price.

With the advent of wireless LNP (local number portability) and Cingular's acquisition of AT&T Wireless, it's possible that AU could support even more incoming and existing students. Beginning in fall 2005, the only telephone service the university will support will be wireless, which will run over its newly built in-building wireless system. Students now can get cell phone coverage anywhere on campus via AU's wireless partners, while AU can reduce the cost of maintaining its wireline network.

"Students were voting with their own pocketbooks, and you would be hard pressed to find a new freshman entering the campus that did not already have a cell phone that they were paying for and were choosing to use instead of our phone service," said AU's Whitman. "We wanted to install physical infrastructure that could allow us to go out of the phone business entirely in the residence halls from a university provisioning standpoint. Next September, school will open and we won't provide any local or long-distance capabilities for the students at all, and the only way they will have a phone is if they use their cell phone."

When AU made the decision to go wireless, it enlisted the help of BearingPoint to find the best solution. With a desire to maintain its image as a technology-savvy school, AU put forth a laundry list of requirements, which included outdoor/indoor wireless coverage and capacity, device service (PDAs, laptops and cell phones) over the AU campus, support two cellular/PCS voice services and access to AU's campus-wide WLAN.

Upon completing an analysis of various options, Bearingpoint found that MobileAccess Networks' system was the best fit as the in-building backbone for AU's campus. This system consists of the Modulite base station that connects to the wireless provider's base station and the MA-1000 remote unit, which converts cellular signals from optical to RF over AU's GigE network. From there, the university has connected Cisco 1200 access Wi-Fi points to the MobileAccess remote unit, which transmits cellular and Wi-Fi signals over a network to passive antennas deployed on each floor of every building. And because the system allows the wireless LAN network to use the same cabling and antennas as the original installation, AU does not have to use additional horizontal cabling to increase WLAN coverage capacity.