Information Technology Web Log

The Life Sciences Annex (LSA) building has now joined campus buildings offering wireless to faculty, staff and students. The rooms along the 132 corridor now feature a/b/g 802.11 wireless . ITC continues to expand the coverage in other buildings as well, and upgrading infrastructure to 802.11n where feasible.

The Juniper-Poplar residence hall complex is the latest and greatest of USF’s facilities serving students residing on campus. Apart from all the immediately obvious innovations, they also have a number of advanced behind-the-scenes features.
The entire complex is covered with 802.11n-compliant wireless coverage. In simple terms this means that students can enjoy speeds of up to 300 megabits on wireless — as compared to 54 megabits supported by the previous 802.11g standard, and 11 megabits supported by the traditional 802.11b standard. 802.11n also adds advanced features to deal with multipath and other radio intereference.
In addition to wireless, every active Ethernet jack in the building is capable of 1 gigabit speeds, and the building backbone as well as connection to the campus backbone is 10 gigabits.
The practical implications of all this technology is that students and faculty residing in Juniper-Poplar will have faster-than-ever access to on-campus resources such as streaming video and audio, large project files, and other data-intensive uses.

Information Technology Communications has finished replacing the obsolete network infrastructure in all of the College of Business as well as all of the College of the Arts. We’re also updating a page with progress reports and Before-and-After pictures.
This project is replacing network equipment that is up to 13 years old with Power-over-Ethernet capable Gigabit Ethernet equipment for support of convergence of data, voice and video applications. It also vastly improves support for data-intensive research applications.

Several rooms on the 1st and 2nd floor of the BSN building (old wing) now have 802.11n compliant wireless signal available. In practice this means the ability to serve more clients, have more reliable connections, and faster wireless speeds. We will continue to expand 802.11n coverage throughout campus.

Information Technology Communications has finished replacing the obsolete network infrastructure in the Contemporary Art Museum, Fine Arts Studio, Stavros Center for Economic Education, Anchin Center, both wings of the Education building and most of the College of Business as well as College of Arts. We’re also updating a page with progress reports and Before-and-After pictures.

Information Technology Communications will be upgrading the network infrastructure of select buildings (Business, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Education and Physics) to support Gigabit Ethernet, a speedup of ten to a hundred times compared to the current networks available at these locations.
The new Ethernet switches also support advanced features that prevent many network malfunctions and security problems, thereby reducing workload on USF IT personnel, making the network safer and more reliable. It also prepares USF to take advantage of unified communications in the long run, allowing the use of the computer network for telephony and video applications. This means that two separate, additional sets of cabling and equipment are no longer needed, leading to cost savings and a more efficient, single management framework.
This upgrade replaces equipment that is in some cases well over a decade old and no longer supported by the manufacturer.
You can find out more at http://www.net.usf.edu/desktop

The Internet service provider Sprint has depeered USF’s Internet service provider Cogent as of around 6PM this evening. Because of this, any single-homed Sprint customer will be unable to reach USF and vice versa. Some Sprint sites may be reachable via our Internet2 commercial peering service, but unfortunately not all sites. If you are having problems reaching a particular Internet site, it is very likely on Sprint’s network. We have contacted Cogent’s NOC and they’ve said this is being handled at the highest levels in the company, but there is currently no ETA for when peering will be restored. We will post additional information as soon as it’s available.
For more information, please see this article from Earth Times or a very thorough blog entry from Renesys.
On 9/1/2008 at 10:30AM, USF established a temporary peering relationship with FLR (Florida Lambda Rail) giving us access to Sprint via FLR’s Internet connection. This peering will remain in place as long as Sprint and Cogent continue this dispute. As of right now, Sprint has chosen to temporarily reconnect to Cogent so that customers of both ISP’s can reach each other. But, since Sprint says this is only temporary, we will keep our peering with FLR in place as a backup.

The first floor of the Tampa library joins CWY Hall in spearheading the latest in wireless technology and now offers 802.11n coverage. Currently speeds of up to 100 megabits / second are available, and soon we will add support for 300 megabits / second in the 5 GHz spectrum.

The XBox (360) has trouble operating through NAT, and this can affect users in the residence halls. If you run into this issue, please visit our new
Game Console Registration page for a solution.

The University of South Florida Data Network Management group is proud to introduce the first 802.11n compatible wireless access points for the use of students, faculty and staff. The initial deployment will serve the two first floor classrooms in the C. W. Young building, and of course 802.11b/g and 802.11a continue to be supported as well. 802.11n offers significantly higher speeds, up to 300 Mbps, better range and better support for multimedia applications.
Please note that to utilize the full 802.11n speeds you will need a 5 GHz 802.11n compatible wireless card in your laptop or portable device. We intend to continue expanding wireless coverage and plan to utilize the latest technology in bringing wireless connectivity to the USF community.