Roam into a new era of wireless connectivity

As spring flowers bloom on Duke’s campus, students, faculty and staff can migrate outside with their laptops to enjoy the sunshine and plenty of outdoor Wi-Fi due to recent wireless improvements.

Studying anywhere outdoors on campus used to be a challenge. Now, outdoor spaces such as Duke Gardens have an updated wireless network to provide faster, efficient speeds whether you’re sitting on a bench behind Duke Chapel or under a tree in the Gardens. Large classrooms, on both East and West campus, have also been updated to optimize connectivity for students and faculty. 

Duke’s network engineering team in the Office of Information Technology is leading a whole new era of wireless to expand improved wireless access in popular locations such as Duke Gardens and Cameron Indoor Stadium, as well as large classrooms across campus. 

Image

The team runs the network infrastructure across campus – including wireless, wired, and security appliances such as internal fire wall, IPS and VPN clusters. David Smith, the team’s senior manager, focuses on project management to ensure the team has the resources needed to be successful. 

“Duke attracts some of the best students in the world,” Smith said. “We want to provide the same world class experience on our wireless network.” 

Both time and equipment helped the team increase the number of access points, or wireless networking routers, in the Gardens; before, there was only one access point for the entire area, connected via fiber because of the span of distance. 

“We had to remove that one access point, and re-connect fiber, and power, and actually put a switch out there,” Smith said of the three-month process. “The way I like to describe it is if you had a three-lane highway, a 6 GHz spectrum gives you six more lanes. You are taking a three-lane highway and turning it into a nine-lane highway.” 

With large crowd gatherings in Cameron Indoor Stadium, network speed is often impacted and more “lanes” are needed. Now, sixty new access points in the ceiling allow attendees to use their phones and connect to Wi-Fi smoothly. 

James Nesbitt, a wireless lead and senior network engineer on Smith’s team, worked with the team to switch access points to the 6 GHz spectrum in Cameron, changing out the wireless access points from the 5th generation to the new and improved 6th generation.

“I think it’s helped out a lot,” said Nesbitt, who has been an integral part of the wireless improvements on campus. “We’ve had some people do some speed tests during basketball games and they’re getting tremendous speeds from the newer technology.”

K-Ville also suffered from poor connectivity. Previously, students camping in K-Ville had been connected to Wi-Fi via “Duke Trees,” access points on top of a pole inside a concrete bucket. 

“They didn’t look great, we hid them in bushes,” Smith laughed. “And every year the guys would go and deploy these access points in K-Ville so students could go to class and get their work done while camping. Now, there’s a permanent solution.” 

The aesthetic of Duke’s outdoor spaces is a top consideration when introducing technical equipment. The university and landscape architects must approve any changes made outdoors. 

“It takes time and that’s the challenge,” Smith said. 

Required changes for indoor spaces are approved by Nesbitt, and while outdoor spaces are set up with fast, more reliable wireless connectivity, so are large classrooms. When students and staff returned to campus after the COVID-19 lockdown, there was a “device explosion” with a significant increase in devices being used in classrooms. 

“When I look at our wireless infrastructure, it isn’t bandwidth that’s our problem, it’s the number of devices. We’re now seeing people bring three [devices] with them,” said Smith, whose goal is to switch the entire campus to 6 GHz spectrum by the summer of 2027.

Nesbitt’s innovation, allowing the spectrum to go farther after being squeezed through directional access points, has made the difference for our device-dependent culture. Professors have already provided positive feedback about the strengthened network. 

“It feels like wireless is finally getting the attention it needs on campus,” Nesbitt said. 

Students, faculty and staff are invited to submit a ticket to report a connectivity issue on campus by visiting fixit.oit.duke.edu.