NOMAD Usage in the Residence Halls

How Wireless Works
What's Available
What to Use and When
Your Mother Would Want You to Share
Optimimze Your Network Experience
Need A Cable?

With the addition of the NOMAD wireless network to the Residence Halls this year, we’ve added the ability to unplug and take your computer to the couch, to your neighbor’s room, to the lounge and just about anywhere you want to go. But with any freedom, there are limitations to what it can and should do – Wireless is no exception.

How Wireless Works

When you connect your computer to any wireless network, you’re sharing an Access Point (AP) with all those connected around you. A single person connected to an AP has the potential to get up to the full 54 Mb download speed. As more users connect to the AP,  the download speed decreases, not only based on how many people are connected, but also by what they’re doing on the network. Too many users or just a handful that are being poor neighbors can degrade the performance of the wireless network to a point of it being unusable.  The OIT added extra APs in every Hall to ensure low user-connection ratios – the rest is up to you!

What’s Available

You currently have two types of network connections available to you when you’re in your room:

• The 54 Mb/sec wireless network that you’re sharing with your friends
• The 100 Mb/sec wired network that gives a direct connection to the network that’s all yours.

What to Use and When

Think about what you’re doing when you’re on the Internet to decide which connection is the best for you to use. Here are some recommendations to guide you:

Wired Network

• Watching Streaming Video
• Listening to Streaming Audio
• Running Limewire or other File Sharing programs (Note: even having the program running on your computer uses bandwidth as it’s allowing others to download from you!)
• Playing online games (World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Everquest)
• Downloading large files from the Internet or from iTunes

Wireless Network

• Checking E-mail and sending IM
• Surfing the Web
• Playing Solitaire
• Looking for girls/guys on MySpace.com

Your Mother Would Want You to Share

Be considerate when you’re using the wireless -- you wouldn’t want to be kicked off wireless because someone else was abusing wireless, so don’t do it yourself. Use the wired network whenever you can and there will be much rejoicing!

Optimize Your Network Experience

In order to use the wired connection, you'll need to register that address on the network because it's different than the address wireless uses. Most computers that have both will automatically use wireless if it's available, so you may not have registered the wired connection yet. Click the links below for further instructions.

Disable/Enable Wireless on Windows XP
Disable/Enable Wireless on Macintosh OS X
Additional info. about wireless

Need A Cable?

If you need an ethernet cable, stop by the Computer Store, room 103 IT Center. Current prices are:

7 feet - $7
14 feet - $9
25 feet - $11
40 feet - $16
50 feet - $18