History of the Pilot Project: Herty Field

The wireless project at Herty Field exists as a result of the collaboration between Franklin College, the Vice President of Instruction, the Law School, the Honors Program and EITS. The project was initiated in June 2001. Franklin College of Arts and Sciences provided most of the initial funding but also received a financial contribution from former Vice President of Instruction, Tom Dyer. The Honors Program and the Law School agreed to have the access points installed at their sites. EITS evaluated the wireless gateway solutions and implemented the authentication and management controls.  Since that time, the PAWS network has expanded to include many areas of the campus and downtown Athens.  Recent PAWS funding for outdoor green spaces on North and South Campus, the Student Learning Center, and several other areas has been provided primarily by EITS and the Student Technology Fee funds.  Numerous departments and colleges have also deployed and funded wireless initiatives as part of the PAWS network.News and Information Links

Overview of PAWS

Wireless LAN technology has matured to the point that campus deployment is now feasible. Using a wireless LAN, faculty, staff and students will be able to connect to the campus network and access network services (http, https, ssh, ftp, imap, etc.) without the need to sit down at a designated terminal. All they will need is an 802.11b compliant wireless network card for their laptop or PDA. Clients will be able to use the same services they would using a wired network. The EITS wireless deployment will be known as PAWS (Personal Access Wireless/Walkup System).

The PAWS wireless network is considered to be an insecu re network, and as such is isolated from our campus network. Access to the PAWS network is through 802.11b compliant Access Points. These access points have both a radio transceiver and an ethernet jack. They are mounted on walls or ceilings to provide a radius of coverage. Users must be within a certain distance of an Access Point to connect to it. Multiple Access Points are used to provide continuous coverage over a large area. The Access Points connect the wireless LAN to the wired ethernet infrastructure of the wireless network through a wireless gateway. The wireless gateways sit on both the PAWS network and the campus network. These gateways only allow authenticated users to access the campus network from the PAWS network. Users authenticate using their UGA MyID user name and password, which is checked against a central UGA authentication server.

The IEEE 802.11b standard specifies 11Mbps raw throughput, which in practice can be closer to 5Mbps (shared). The typical user will find this speed acceptable. 802.11b wireless networking has a range of about 300 meters in a large open space and about 100 meters in a typical indoor office environment. Transmission speeds decrease as the distance between the wireless device and the access point increases. The network can handle hundreds of users logged in at one time, however, the speed of the wireless network is shared among all users who are using a particular access point. The more people actively using the network the slower it gets. PAWS network is not intended to replace the wired campus network. Wireless networking is, by nature, more prone to disruption. Walls with metal beams and large metal objects (desks and filing cabinets) can affect the quality of the connection.

Topography, architectural obstructions and other factors have to be considered along with distance from wireless access points when designing new wireless access areas. DNL's should contact the EITS Wireless Task force for assistance in designing and installing a wireless gateway. Please include information on the nature and size of the area you would like to add to the PAWS network and a best guess of how many users you think it will need to support.

Using previously defined technical specifications, the EITS wireless Task force evaluated six Wireless network solutions: Reefedge, Vernier Networks System, Bluesocket, Sputnik, NoCatNet, and Georgia Institute of Technology's LAWN. While no solution can fit everyone's situation, we believe the best out-of-the-box ready-to-go-now solution is the Bluesocket. We are also continuing to develop a UGA version of the LAWN for deployment in some specific situations.

Gateway Specifications Considered:
Customizable web interface
Secure LDAP authentication
External syslog support
SNMP support
Access Point and OS agnostic
Multiple gateways can work alone or together (master - slaves)
Supports Roles for users to enforce use policies
Certificates
SSL support
802.11a/b/g protocol support
IPSec, PPTP, VPN protocol support
Central/Distributed Administration
Ease of use
Ease of deployment
Cost of initial installation
Cost of support Recommended Equipment: Gateways: Bluesocket WG-1000 gateway
Access Points: any 802.11b compliant access point
Network wiring: additional wiring may be required, depending on the specific situation