Intel Corporation has named Elon University one of the top 100 colleges and universities in the nation for wireless computing access. Elon ranks #43 on the “Most Unwired College Campuses” list, the highest-ranking North Carolina school.
This is the second year that Intel has sponsored a nationwide survey of wireless computing. This year’s survey ranks cities, airports and colleges that are leaders in implementing wireless technology. The survey was conducted by researcher Bert Sperling, who collects and analyzes data for the nationally known “Best Places” surveys.
The “Most Unwired College Campuses” survey findings are based on the number of wireless access areas (hotspots), the number of undergraduates, number of computers and the computer-to-student ratio. The results were also based on the percentage of each college campus that is covered by wireless technology.
The Elon campus includes about 75 wireless access points that allow students to access the Internet via wireless laptop computers. Most academic buildings, dining halls and the north athletics complex provide wireless access zones along with some residence halls and the main outdoor commons areas on campus. In many areas, students can move from building to building without losing the wireless signal.
This summer, the technology on campus will be upgraded to the new wireless transmission standard, increasing data transfer speeds from 11 mb/sec to 54 mb/sec.
Elon technology staff supports 1,783 computers, including 654 computers in 21 labs that are available for student use. Virtually 100 percent of the campus is wired to the Internet, with all residence halls providing a network data port for each student.
In addition to Elon’s #43 ranking, other North Carolina schools on the top 100 list include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at #52 and Davidson College at #81.
North Carolina cities on the “Most Unwired Cities” list include Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill (#30), Charlotte-Gastonia (#57) and Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point (#90).