Here's the article on UWO wireless technology, I believe similar breed; courtesy of The Globe & Mail.
Unplugged MBAs stay connected
WIRELESS LEARNING
Western's business school found a cutting-edge way
to give students on-line access without the lines.
Friday, September 11, 1998
By Elizabeth Church
London, Ont. -- Ed Cloutier knew he had a problem.
Mr. Cloutier, chief information officer for the University of Western Ontario's business school, dropped by the computer lab last year only to find two MBA students battling for control of one of the school's 39 desktop computers.
While one student huddled over the keyboard, the other stood behind him, knocking him in the head with his fists.
"Hurry up," he said. "I have a class in 20 minutes."
On the floor lay the students' own portable computers. So it wasn't the computer they were fighting over -- it was the connection to the Internet and the school's internal Web site.
"I said to myself, 'This is nuts. We've got to do something about this,' " Mr. Cloutier recalls.
What he did was pull the plug -- and find a cutting-edge alternative.
This week, as master of business administration students troop back to the Richard Ivey School of Business, they enter the world of wireless computing. As they walk through the halls, munch a sandwich in the lunchroom or even sit on the grass outside, they can flip open their laptop and go on-line -- with no wires attached.
"The bottom line is that students are absolutely blown away by this," says Mr. Cloutier, an enthusiastic cheerleader for the new wireless network.
In fact, his role is part of the deal. As an early user of the technology, the school got a break on prices by the supplier, Raytheon Wireless Solutions, a division of the defence contractor Raytheon Co. of Lexington, Mass. In return, Mr. Cloutier will host seminars for prospective clients.
"They see us as a flagship account to break into the school market," he says.
The new system operates on the same principles as a cellphone. Over the summer, about 30 transmitting stations were installed throughout the 75-year-old business school. The small black boxes, about the size of hard-cover books, can be put anywhere there is a power source and give off a radio signal that carries between 15 and 30 metres in all directions.
As students carry their laptops from lecture hall to library, their link to the system is transferred from one station to the next with no interruption.
Starting this year, the new crop of MBA students must show up with a notebook computer. For $400, including a $100 deposit returned at graduation, they rent a small transmission card that plugs into their laptop and gives them access to the wireless network.
Once on-line, students have access not only to E-mail and the Internet, but to Ivey's custom-designed intranet that includes electronic chat rooms, the latest job postings, and a personalized timetable that is updated to include weekly readings and any last-minute scheduling changes.
"My productivity went way up. I found it a real bonus," says Tim Grigg, a second-year MBA student who took part in a trial of the technology last spring. While Mr. Grigg owned a laptop, he says he never bothered lugging it to class until he was linked to the network.
"I left it at home and did things where I had a phone line."
Besides the appeal of cool new technology, Mr. Cloutier sees a strong business case for getting unplugged. Pulling wires and placing enough jacks throughout the school, which is actually three buildings stuck together, would be time-consuming and costly. The only other option was buying more computers. But with 800 graduate and undergraduate students, there was no way to accommodate them all.
By choosing the wireless option, the network was up and running in about a month. Mr. Cloutier says it also allows students to use computers where they naturally tend to congregate and gets around the problem of wires trailing across floors from wall jacks to tables and library carrels.
As for the cost, Mr. Cloutier says transmission hubs are in the $2,000 range with wireless cards running between $500 and $600 each. He won't say what the school shelled out for the new technology, but the partnership agreement means the wireless network costs about the same as a traditional one.
"The important thing is that it's a wash," he says.
Bob Nagro, the director of educational sales for Raytheon's wireless product line, says technological advances, along with recent standardization in the industry, make wireless a more attractive option.
So far, Ivey is the only school in North America to use the firm's wireless network, although Mr. Nagro says there are trials under way at U.S. universities.
The only other client the company will publicly discuss is Price Waterhouse, which uses a less elaborate arrangement to create wireless networks for auditors working at a job site.
Of course, the new program will mean more dollars out of student's pockets. Laptops are sold at a premium to their desktop cousins and there is the $400 card fee.
But Mr. Cloutier says about 80 per cent of MBA students -- who generally have worked for a few years -- own laptops.
The cost issue is one reason why the wireless technology, at least for now, is not mandatory for undergraduates who enter Ivey in their third and fourth year of university.
Mr. Cloutier says the cost to students is justified by the content they get on the Web.
"Where a lot of schools fall short is they say you should have a computer, but they don't provide the information systems to make the computer valuable and they don't provide the connectivity."
Mr. Grigg -- the student who took part in last spring's trial -- says it was useful to go on-line and pull up information on a company being discussed in class, or walk down the hall to talk about a spreadsheet with another student.
Mr. Cloutier says faculty had some misgivings about the technology, but it is not intended to replace classroom teaching.
"I'm not trying to generate on-line learning. I'm trying to make the 90 per cent of the time students are not in class more efficient."
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