A study of existing wireless infrastructure and the future of wireless mesh networks in the educational institutions across the USA.

摘要

Wireless networks provide ubiquitous access to, be it the Internet or a local campus network, and has found their way into many places. Educational institutions have taken interest in deploying wireless networks as seen by the long list on the website www.acuta.org. What factors influenced the adoption of wireless, the state of the existing wireless infrastructure and the problems faced in the administration of the network will be interesting to study and will be beneficial to others interested in this field. Aside from the research in the new IEEE 802.11 standards to improve speed, security and coverage, there is another group researching the application of traditional mesh network principles in wireless. Wireless mesh networks are co-operative networks where every node acts as a transmitter and receiver. The inherent characteristics of mesh networks are decentralization of the core nodes, resilient to node outages and broken links, and high reliability. The existing IEEE 802.11 wireless technologies are used in mesh networks. Wireless mesh networks' existence is spread far and wide, from airports to malls, corporate buildings to university campuses, hotels to homes, and the list goes on and on. This research aims to study the existing wireless infrastructure in educational institutions and find out what the administrators of wireless network think of wireless mesh networks' future. Data collected from past research and articles, along with three interviews of system administrators in educational institutions in North America will be used to draw a conclusion and list the significant factors.