Campuses go wireless: Laptops growing in popularity

OREM — Last winter as students travelled to Utah Valley State College, they noticed a sign at a fast-food restaurant advertising free Wi-Fi.

Students publicly questioned why, if Burger King could have free wireless Internet, they had to pay a $25 set-up fee and $5 a month to get the Internet on campus.

The discussion became a campaign issue during student government elections and was eventually taken up by the administration, which started a $300,000 project — collected from student fees, tuition and the college's general fund — to provide free wireless Internet.

Other Utah colleges and universities are also expanding and improving wireless access. Almost all the initiatives started with students who use laptops, cell phones, personal digital assistants and other devices equipped for wireless.

"People expect on a university campus that you can come in and access the Internet," said Don Gardner, chief information officer at Weber State University in Ogden. "And, in fact, that's the case almost anywhere these days."

Last spring, 90 percent of the UVSC campus was wireless, and 1,000 students, faculty and staff paid the $5 monthly fee to access the Internet, said Val Peterson, a UVSC vice president.

The $300,000 project aims by the fall to have 100 percent of the campus covered with an anticipated 8,000 people using it.

"Tuition will go up, so in essence, they won't have to pay each month for it," said Steve Anderson, a UVSC student government representative. "Now it will be open access for all students."

"The penetration of wireless has been spread over a good 10 years or so," said Peter DeBlois of Educause, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to advance higher education with information technology. "It's only just begun to pick up. Most campuses are placing wireless accessibility in critical teaching and learning locations first, like libraries, learning commons, certain classrooms, and again the degree of penetration varies widely."

According to Educause's 2005 survey of 933 colleges and universities throughout the world, 45.8 percent of classrooms are equipped with wireless Internet connectivity.

Schools that award doctorate degrees have more wireless classrooms — almost 52 percent — than schools offering only associate degrees — about 40 percent.

At Brigham Young University in Provo, wireless Internet access has recently been expanded to Brigham's Square, an outdoor commons area between the Wilkinson Center, Harris Fine Arts Center and the Harold B. Lee Library.