Bandwidth: it’s pretty much essential
When I arrived on campus, I noticed how few people carried laptops. I seemed to be the only person at meetings with a laptop, and this included IT meetings. Then I realized we didn’t have ubiquitous wireless. And then I realized that our bandwidth is saturated, even with our packet shaping tricks. And then I realized that until we increase our bandwidth, all of my visions for ubiquitous wireless, 802.11n pilots, VOIP, virtual computing labs, videoconferencing, etc. are doomed to fail.
Without the basics in place, you can’t really afford to be strategic. Or, I guess I have a strategy, it’s just not particularly innovative.
So, this summer we join the state educational network and will fork off the residential traffic. That will help, but it may not be enough. I’m also going to see if our next building can be exclusively wireless with 802.11n. We shall see. If my idea fails, it will be horrible!!!