The University of Delaware is going unplugged. Wireless access to the University network is in high demand as more and more members of the campus community turn to portable

computers and, as a result, services are expanding quickly, according to Daniel Grim, executive director of UD's Information Technologies Network and System Services.

Grim says students, faculty and staff are drawn to wireless because of the portability and resulting ease of use. "The primary value is convenience," he says. "You can take your laptop with you and connect to the network without 'plugging in.' The main idea is to make it easier to be on the network wherever you might want to be, at lunch, at a meeting or while studying between classes."

Currently, buildings supported by the wireless network include the Morris Library, Memorial Hall, Alfred Lerner Hall, Clayton Hall and several areas of the Pencader residential complex. Also supported is Arsht Hall on UD's Wilmington campus.

Grim says the list of areas with wireless coverage is growing constantly. "We are providing wireless coverage in virtually all of the Trabant and Perkins student centers, all of the dining halls, including the Trabant Food Court and The Scrounge in Perkins, as well as virtually every lounge in every dorm," he says.

He says wireless coverage was recently added in the Dickinson residence hall complex, with service in the lounges on every floor in each of the six buildings.

For a list of areas supported by the wireless network, see IT's UnpluggeD web page at [http://www.udel.edu/wireless]. The site also includes helpful maps indicating wireless locations, as well as information on system requirements, set-up and UD's wireless computing policies.

As UD adds new wireless sites, it also continues to improve the wireless capabilities at existing sites. Grim says a summer upgrade increased the maximum speed from 11 megabits of information per second to 54 megabits per second. His staff is also tracking new developments "that promise to make even higher speeds available through wireless access."

The next key improvement in wireless services, Grim says, will be not to the UD network but to individual laptops. "While wireless is a very useful technology, the limiting factor in 'mobile' computing is the operating life of the batteries in the computer," he says. "Today's laptops can run for two to three hours without recharging but newer battery technology, including hydrogen fuel cells, promises to extend this to maybe eight to 10 hours."

Once that happens, Grim says, "You could conceive of using your laptop all day long, no matter where you go, without having to plug into the network or to the electrical outlet. That's when mobile computing will really come of age."

For those unfamiliar with the technology, wireless networking uses radio frequency communications similar to AM and FM radio stations but using a much higher carrier frequency, Grim explains.

"While AM radio ranges from 500 to 1600 kilohertz, or thousands of cycles per second, and FM radio ranges from 88 to 108 megahertz, or millions of cycles per second, the wireless technologies at UD use carrier frequencies of 2.4 gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second," Grim says.