Initial Problem:

     Over the 2010 Christmas break the Information Systems department on the campus of Southern Adventist University installed wireless access points in the student dorms. A few weeks after installation, they chose to eliminate wireless interference as an answer to wireless connectivity complaints. They did this by forcing students to turn off their wireless routers and threatening their Internet privileges if they did not comply.

     The purpose of this petition is to request an alternative to shutting down student's routers while working within the goals of the Information Systems Department. Having a personal router is important to many students and it helps them academically for several reasons. Here are some of the reasons that they are needed:

·       Routers provide security between student computers & the rest of the campus via NAT & firewall protection if desired.
·       Routers provide a way to synchronize data on student computers and wireless devices, saving hundreds of gigabytes of data from the SAU wireless traffic daily, and thus preventing slow Internet for everyone else.
·       Routers use only one IP, where as the 3, 4, and sometimes 5 devices that students now have to connect to SAU will use 5 separate IP addresses, which are not unlimited and must be assigned by the Information Systems (I.S.) servers.
·       Routers provide students with a way to use their computers without having to authenticate several times daily.
·       Routers allow students to use wireless printers and to protect them from being accessed by the entire campus.
·       Routers are faster than the SAU alternatives. They are on a different subnet with a dedicated line rather than one single router shared by hundreds of devices.

So what is the solution?

     Wireless routers work on wireless channels. There are 11 high-powered channels that routers and access points can utilize. I.S. openly claims that their access points span and use all of the channels. A simple and workable solution would be for I.S. to open up channel 1 for students to use on their own routers, limiting the SAU access points to 6-11 for their traffic. This would lower the load on their access points by transferring it back to personal routers and would give the students the lowest frequency channel for their own personal use. This is a no loss solution, and would provide both parties with their own desired outcome.

Alternatives:

      The I.S. department claims that their access points utilize both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. An alternative would be to open only one channel on the 5GHz band and require that students have a 5GHz router if they want to use their own. The 5GHz band has 12 non-overlapping channels. I.S. could give students 1 channel and use the other 11 without interference. Another possibility would be limiting their access points to the 5GHz band only. One advantage to this would be that the 5GHz band is “unregulated” unlike the 2.4GHz band, which is regulated by the FCC and is held under the FCC rules, which state that all wireless devices must accept interference regardless of whether it is affecting performance.

So what if I.S. is unable to only use channels 6-11 on the 2.4Ghz band and unable to clear a channel on the 5GHz band? :

      The dorm students were experiencing issues with wireless access points prior to this, but not nearly as many issues as they are experiencing now. Students already own their own routers, and if it comes down to one or the other, it is not worth giving up a fast dedicated connection for a slow wireless connection that is shared by half the dorm. A wired connection trumps a wireless one every time.

Conclusion:

     The students of SAU accept that I.S. is installing routers for our benefit. We as a student body are grateful for the attempt on the part of the department in this area. The purpose of this petition is to clarify that something that I.S. has removed in the process of helping us, is actually harming us further. We believe that the solution we have found fits within the goals of the I.S. department.

Petition:

     We, the undersigned, respectfully request that Southern Adventist University review and reverse the policy of disallowing wireless routers in student dorm rooms.