Wireless network approved

North Lake will soon offer fast, free, wireless Internet access to all.

On Tuesday, March 22, the President’s Cabinet approved the creation of two public wireless access points on the North Lake campus.

“Everyone recognized the risks. They just wanted to know if the risks were manageable,” said J.D. Haight, North Lake’s dean of educational and administrative technology. Haight made the presentation outlining the risks and benefits to creating a public wireless network.

The Cabinet gave its approval to make the library’s currently private access point open for public use. They also approved the installation of a second access point in the cafeteria that will be installed once funding and equipment are acquired.

Haight said that the cafeteria’s access point would only be installed at the same time as the library’s access point if District Communications, who provide support for the voice and data communications across the district, has the necessary equipment available. “Conceivably, within two weeks we should have wireless networking both places,” he said. If the equipment for the cafeteria’s access point is not available, Haight said it would be about a month or two until the cafeteria’s access point is up.

Haight said there would be no need for any passwords to gain access to the wireless network. Open access will be given to anyone within range of the base station, about 500 feet. All that would be required is a computer or other device with wireless networking capability.

Haight said there are risks involved with offering such free access. Open access to the Internet would give anyone the ability to do anything on the Internet, including the distribution of illegal materials. Such materials include anything from pirated music or movies to child pornography.

“We brought this concern up [before the District Information Technology Committee] and jaws dropped,” said Haight. Although there are several other public access wireless networks throughout the district, Haight said, “I don’t think anyone had asked this question.”

Those concerns were taken to the Dallas County Community College District’s legal council last year. It was found that as long as material was not on any computer owned by the district, the school would not be liable for any misuse of the network.

Another risk in building a wireless network are computer viruses. Haight said there are several methods they will use to quarantine a computer that is possibly infected with a virus or worm.

Concerns have arose surrounding the limit to the number of users who can access the network at once and with the bandwidth, or the amount of data that can be passed through a communications channel in a given period of time.

Haight said the network would be first come, first served. There is a limit to the number of users who can access any given access point. Haight did not know what the limit would be, but he said user limits are generally between 50 and 250.

Haight said that the bandwidth would not be regulated and that there is no way to prioritize who will get how much bandwidth.

Haight said there is currently no plan to expand the network beyond the two access points, though they will serve as a way to allow the school to see what difficulties might be encountered if the network were expanded.

Haight said about the network, “It’s a good concept. It helps to build community... It’s liberating.”