Speaking of bandwidth, some of the university's large classes are restricted in what they can do with the 802.11b WLAN. An intro class of 200 students, for instance, can't all download the professor's broadcast slides at the same time.
"When peaks of demand are synchronized, it's very demanding on the WLAN," Hanset says. "They complain about the slowness due to the congestion. It's limiting what instructors can do and limiting collaborative classrooms."
To remedy that, Hanset says the university eventually will add support for 802.11a and 802.11g, both running at up to 54 Mbps. The good news about 802.11g is that it's backward-compatible with 802.11b. The bad news is that if an 802.11b user needs to talk to the network, the access point has to switch between the two protocols, and the throughput reverts to 802.11b's 11-Mbps limit.
Meanwhile, 801.11a would work well for Tennessee's densely populated areas--especially classrooms--because it operates at 5 GHz, compared with 2.4 GHz for b and g. The lower frequency is commonly used in cordless telephones and other consumer electronic equipment, often causing interference.
"We're already advising students to use a and g," Hanset says. And Tennessee has added 802.11a and g cards to some of its access points.
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