December 31st, 2008 - CS Private Research Wireless Network Being Decommissioned

If you are a current user of the CS Private Research wireless network, you will find information about using the IU Secure wireless network in the UITS KB article about IU Secure. Note that you must have a wireless device capable of doing WPA2 encryption in order to use IU Secure. The WPA2 standard has been in place since 2004 so any devices produced since this date can probably do WPA2. If you have an older laptop that does not support WPA2 encryption, then you can purchase an inexpensive WPA2-capable wireless PC card.

Please note that there are areas in Lindley Hall where the coverage for the IU Secure network is better than for the CS network, and vice versa. If you are using the CS wireless network in an area where the signal strength for the IU Secure network is too low to be usable, please let us know. We can work with UITS to address this issues through the addition of new access points or by moving existing access points.

There are a number of reasons we have decided to decommission our CS wireless network. Here are the main factors:

1. Security - The old CS wireless network uses a depricated encryption standard (WEP) that is much less secure than the WPA2 encryption standard being used with IU Secure.

2. Interference - Whenever you have parallel wireless networks operating on the same frequency you introduce interference that can result in decreased performance. It is likely that the signal strength and reliability of the IU Secure network will improve once our access points are powered off.

3. Maintenance - The CS network has used a separate hardware (MAC) address registration process that has been time consuming to administer and confusing to users. Elimination of this network saves staff time and makes the wireless network in Lindley Hall look like the rest of campus.

4. Compliance - IU policy prohibits departments from having their own wireless networks so decommissioning our network will bring the CS department in compliance with IU policy.

Please let us know if you have any questions about the elimination of the CS Private Research wireless network.

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