Minutes for February 21, 2003
The Web Developers Users' Group met on February 21, 2003, at 2:00 PM in the PLSU Ballroom East.
Wireless networking demonstration
Presented by:
- Sara Clark, Web Coordinator
- Jason Lee, Distributed User Support Specialist for the College of Education
- Joseph Kuster, Web Access Compliance Team
The topics discussed were:
- Missouri State's wireless setup
- 802.1x
- Requires authentication with Copper account
- Covering student areas of Union and parts of Hill Hall
- Requires hardware/software that supports LEAP (for now)
- 802.11b
- Normally insecure transmissions— 802.1X is used for secure authentication
- Parts of Levy-Wolf, King Street Annex, Temple and Strong Hall
- Network speed of 11 mbps— shared by all users
- Only a limited number of users allowed on the network at once
- Need to have Mac address of card registered with Telecommunication Services—$5/month must be paid from a University budget—contact Angie Cockrum
- 802.1x
- Hardware using wireless technology
- Tablet PC
- Compaq iPAQ
- Cell phone
- Wireless router and repeater and card
Questions and answers
Sara, Jason, Norm and Joe answered the groups questions about various aspects of using wireless networks.
How fast is the wireless on campus?
All wireless 802.11b networks operate at a maximum of 11mbps. This is split among all users on the network at any given time. The encrypting of the transmissions in the areas that use 802.1X further reduces the speed for the user. While slower than a wired network it is usually faster than dial-up connections.
What is 802.1X?
The secure network authentication is provided by 802.1X. This allows a normally insecure 802.11b network to encrypt transmissions and include secure authentication.
What network cards work with 802.1X?
The Cisco Aironet 340 and 350 wireless networking cards support LEAP natively and work with 802.1X. These are available in PCI cards for desktop computers and PCMCIA cards for mobile devices such as PDAs and laptops. Pricing for the PCI cards are around $200 and up and the PCMCIA cards can be found for $70 and up. Other wireless cards that offer LEAP support have not been tested on our networks yet. All network cards without LEAP support will require additional software to connect to our 802.1X based networks.
Will the Cisco cards work other places?
The Cisco Aironet cards cards support normal 802.11b networks and should work with the majority of other wireless networks.
Will the wireless card I already have work?
All 802.11b wireless cards should work for the areas that are not using 802.1X authentication, such as Strong and Temple Hall. For the areas that do use 802.1X, Hill Hall and the PSU, wireless service requires some form of LEAP support to connect to our network. Currently Funk software is developing software solutions to allow LEAP authentication for most 802.11b cards running on Windows, Macintosh and iPAQs. Pricing is expected to be around $50 per client. There are several free LEAP software packages for Linux.
How can I get wireless networking for home?
Computer stores such as Best Buy offer home networking kits that include everything that is needed to start your own home network. The prices depend on the speed of service, number of computers connecting to it and the size of the coverage area.
How secure are home wireless networks?
Most wireless home networks have some form of built-in security measures. The most common are MAC address filtering and 128 or 256 bit data transmission encryption. According to the manufacturers when set up correctly, no one else can connect to your network unless you want them to and your data transmissions are almost as secure as wired networks.
How much are the tablet PCs and where can I get them?
The tablet PC that was demoed is part of the Gateway Tablet PC Promotion. The promotion price is $2,494.00.
Next meeting
The next WDUG meeting will be held in the Parliamentary Room, PSU 313, on March 27, 2003 at 3:00 PM.
Norman Hill III, Web Access Compliance Team - Missouri State's wireless setup