All three GW campuses – Foggy Bottom, Mount Vernon and the Virginia Campus – will be completely wireless by the end of October, ending a multi-year process started by Information Systems and Services, a University official said this week.
David Steinour, GW’s chief information officer, said the project would be completed this month, albeit behind schedule, as GW had hoped to finish the project by the end of the summer.
“We pretty much have all three campuses well-saturated with wireless at the moment,” Steinour said. “We have 2,400 wireless access points distributed around the three campuses, and you should be able to pretty much get wireless wherever you are around campus.”
Steinour – who was recently promoted to the CIO position – said there are only a few access points left that need to be upgraded with wireless technology.
“There are a couple of outbuildings on K Street that are coming up online by the end of the month,” Steinour said, referencing the part of the 2020 K St. building GW rents for additional classroom space.
The University’s mission to make the entire campus wireless was projected to be finished at the end of this summer.
“We just actually finished it up this month,” Steinour said, adding that the project will never be totally finished, as there are always going to be issues with wireless service. “We’re always looking for dead spots, and we encourage people to let us know if there’s a dead area or if they are having trouble with the wireless technology.”
Steinour added that ISS is looking into whether or not to make GWireless available to iPhone users. Currently, Steinour said he does not recommend that iPhone users use GWireless on their mobile devices, however, he said the University is currently doing research to see if they should develop the capabilities to make GWireless accessible to iPhone users.
Some students interviewed said using GWireless in particular buildings gave them trouble.
“I don’t use the wireless very often because it’s not very reliable. I use the landline Resnet,” said freshman Rachael Burton, referring to the Internet in Thurston Hall, where she lives.
Kim Ouillette, another Thurston resident, echoed Burton’s experiences.
“I will be in my room and it will just go off, so I have to walk around my room and the halls trying to find where [the signal] is better,” Ouillette said. She did say, however, that wireless access in her academic buildings works well.
Senior Qing Wan said she has not had problems with wireless in most buildings, but said Gelman wireless can get spotty when the building is crowded.
“I’ve had success with [wireless on campus],” said Wan, who lives in Ivory Tower. “My dorm has it, and my classrooms have it; it’s fine.”
But, referring to Gelman, she added, “Sometimes it gets really packed, and when there’s more people, the system goes down.”
