District-wide wireless network

Royle Vagle (rvagle@lib.drury.edu)
Sun, 7 Jan 1996 15:41:12 EST

Has anyone had any experience with district-wide wireless networks? I was
asked to sit in on a discussion with school administrators who are
considering a wireless network (I think it was called AirLan) as means of
networking their entire district. The district has 55 to 60 locations,
27,000 students, with a diameter of approximately 15 miles across. It is
their intention to provide full Internet support as well as full
administrative computing support.

Some questions I have are:
1. The community has a population of 180,000 (not large but not small).
With the growth of cellular communications will there be a problem with
interference?

2. Is this mode more susceptible to eavesdropping and more of a data
security risk (for administrative processing) than fiber?

3. Are there costs to be incurred at each location that are significantly
different from those with fiber?

I realize that there is a growing development of wireless communications
but I am not sure what the issues are or should be. I'm not sure just what
questions should be raised! Any comments, questions, experineces would be
greatly appreciated.

Royle

Royle Vagle, PhD (417) 873-7530 phone
Drury College (417) 873-7432 fax
900 North Benton rvagle@lib.Drury.edu
Springfield MO 65802