Wireless at college

I will be going to college next year and want to have wireless internet in my dorm. There is currently a T-1 line, but they don't provide wireless yet. I am not worried about the range as the dorms are very small, but don't want my laptop to be tethered to a wall either. I wold like to be able to print wirelessly, but it is not necessary. I am on a limited budget so don't want to spend to much.

What router would you recommend?

On the laptop would you recommend internal or external wireless.

I haven't used very much of wireless tech, everything at my current school is wired so that's all I have experience with.

1st thing, find out if it is allowed to have WiFi. i know in my bro's college, you are not allowed to have any wireless networks.

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Originally Posted by MrSlacker

1st thing, find out if it is allowed to have WiFi. i know in my bro's college, you are not allowed to have any wireless networks.

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Not allowed? What is this 'Not allowed?'

If you are within the confines of your room, there isn't much they can do to you. Those that get caught doing bad things in the dorms are the ones who are dumb about it. No hot plates allowed in some dorms, and I;ve seen people walking around with KD, or something. My favorite are the potheads who smoke in their rooms. Instant heat score, and big time trouble.

If you want wireless for your room, get it. All wireless routers I've seen have jacks as well, so if it became an issue, just get a longer CAT-5 cable for your laptop. Leave it lying around for someone to trip over, and when they yell at you for that, say, "If I was allowed to use my wireless, this needless accident would never have occurred, so really, who's at fault here?" Leave it with them.

Either that, or just get it and be silent about it.

Hey, I would have to agree to make sure wireless is allowed…
Many dorms don’t let you install Wireless networks, that way others cant get away without paying for their internet. Just a thought.

As far as which type of router to choose to broadcast the wireless signal, I would go with the “G” standard, if you have to buy right now. IF you can wait, there is the “N” standard coming out in a few months that is supposed to offer an 100mps connection from what I have heard…

not allowed means no one is allowed to have any type of private network on campus. may be thats coz his campus is across the street from the white house, but still. the only WiFi spots they got are the ones school provides

I have read everything on their web site as well as the papers I have and it doesn't list them under things that are not allowed.
Everyone who lives in the dorms are given internet access, it is included so theft isn't a problem. The school is in the middle of the desert, 10 minutes from town so for the most part only students will be around.

just to be on the safe side, i would call them up and ask.

OK... about the "not allowed" thing.

I am a network technician for the local school district and we have this problem often with some teachers. They go and place a wireless router in their rooms and the techs (like me) are continuously monitoring for them. :D So when we do find the routers we are ordered to confiscate them because the teacher violated our "acceptable use policy."

99% of the time the teachers just leave the default settings on the routers and the security is wide open, so any high school student can take his laptop after hours and hack into our network with little effort. :mad:

So I would recommend that you try to find out their acceptable use policy or better yet, call them up and ask. They may not care if you have wireless or not.

yeah thats exactly why WiFi is not allowed at my bro's college. he told me that a long time ago, some very 1337 hacker broke the security and college's network somehow somewhere was connected with white house's network... a lot of peopole in college have no clue how to protect their network and then college has to pay for it.