Wifi PDF
Wifi PDF
Wifi PDF
Abstract
Technology can be a boon to the learning community with new technology making an inroad to
the teaching and research domain. Wi-Fi for instance has a tremendous contribution in the way
students connect and access information. This paper looks into the level of Wi-Fi awareness and
the problem face by the student community in the campus and their level of competence. The
study involved a questionnaire survey of students (n=100) and revolves around the students residing
in the campus hostel and as such the off campus students were ignored for the study. The parameter
for the research was ICT literacy, Wi-Fi awareness, connectivity problem, usage, gadget preference.
The outcomes of the finding suggest that although the calls for radical transformations in
educational approaches may be legitimate it would be misleading to ground the arguments for such
change solely in students’ opinion and that the infrastructure indeed shows a great deal of benefit to
the student in the way they connect online.The finding also identified the problem in WiFi hotspots
and the coverage.
1. Introduction:
The “digital divide” is a term coined to address the inequalities of computer ownership and
internet access and use (Servon, 2002) and information asymmetry is a problem when it comes to
the deprive section being devoid of information at a right time at a right place. Technology can
be a boon to the educational system in communication and teaching. Wi-Fi for intance can
monitor an area as a group and communicate using centralized control or ad hoc configuration
and provide a low cost solution. With more and more of these wireless devices being mobile
there is a constant challenge to provide high quality, reliable and secure communication between
these devices. Wi-Fi hotspots offered free of charge in public places that anyone could use to
access the internet (Powell Alison, 2008) thereby allowing the students access all the electronic
information needs. The presence of the Wi-Fi within a define range of hotspot enables the
student avoid the trouble of accessing through the cable LAN which restricts the student from
mobility, WI-FI is proving to be the default Internet access technology.
This level of popularity and growth of WLANs has also introduced a new challenge in the
way corporate and other networks are traditionally managed. The key challenge is around the
manageability of WLANs alongside their wired counterparts without requiring structural changes
to the overall management techniques or processes and without significantly increasing the total
cost of ownership of network management. Unless significant progress is made in the WLAN
management technologies and processes, WLANs will have difficulty in becoming one of the
mainstream networking technologies in the enterprise and other deployments. This is because,
network service providers of all kinds must offer a reliable and consistent network quality of
service no matter how the networks are accessed, else they will be under scrutiny for not meeting
their service level objectives, and they cannot provide that kind of service without a consistent
and structured management practice across their wired and wireless network.
Wireless LAN?
The main campus of the University has an area of 780 acres spread on either side of the
East Coast Road with the large chunk on the landward side of the road. The land is an invaluable
gift from the people and the Government of Puducherry for the establishment of the University.
The land gently rolls down to the beaches and is interspersed with lovely woods. Cut by a
picturesque and deep ravine, this idyllic campus is on the fast track to developing into an ideal
breeding ground for innovation and creativity.
The Pondicherry University terrain can be put into coastal area, with lots of grove and
plantations. The structures in the university are stone Masonries with few exemptions like
Department of Mass Communication. The campus is fully covered with thick groves as blanket
which is the barrier for wireless connectivity. Considering this, suggestion were incorporated
thereby using high power RF, based on the condition and situation, individual AP’s were place in
a structure to increase the serviceable area.
Design:
Since most of the buildings are very close, they were grouped into one unit and the whole
campus into units. The list of which are listed below:
Unit II a) Management Studies both new and 12 AP’s out of which 7 was wall mounted
and rest pole mounted
old block
b) Mass media
c) Physical Education Department
and Adjoining Groves
Unit a) Boy’s hostel, Grove’s and the Covered by PowerStation 2 external with 16
III dbi Omni antenna
bushy areas
Hostel blocks have 30 and Odd AP’s to
cover the maximum region.
IV a) Stadium and nearby bushy region AP’s fixed on pole mount and the powered
from nearest men’s hostel block
V a) DDE, MBA block and
surrounding Block
VI a) Department of Mathematics
b) Physics and
c) The lecture hall
Table 2. List of Infrastructure Product used in campus wide wireless in Pondicherry University
The goal is to integrate Squid with Server 2003 Active Directory through Samba
(Winbind + Kerberos). The university is introducing "Win2K3" server as the authentication
server. On the proxy servers only three files have to be edited which are "squid.conf",
"krb5.conf" and “smb.conf". Besides that, Samba and Kerberos rpm is also installed. There is no
need to restart the proxy servers or even squid proxy service for that matter.
The installation doesn’t take more than an hour. As for granting privilege, users
belonging to a particular group (Inet Access Group) in Active Directory will be able to have web
access after authentication. Some users (especially Wired Users) are allowed to browse without
authentication via squid acls. This Squid acls also prevents the User’s abuse or user logging from
many machines/IP at the same time (i.e simultaneous logins) will be prevented through.
The overarching research question guiding the literature review is: how does the literature on
Wi-Fi use suggest as the appropriate frameworks and concept for describing and analyzing
academic perusal. Internet usage rates per capita are now growing at faster rates in poor countries
than in rich countries (Fink and Kenny, 2003). According to Johan Lundin ( 2010 ) over the past
10 years the capacity of a regular, commercial of the shelf laptop has certainly increased. Today,
the difference in capacity between a desktop machine and a laptop is rather limited, at least in
relation to the way that most of us use our computers. And at the same time, the weight and price
have dropped significantly. It is difficult to get reliable and global data on computer sales, but
2005 is argued to be the year when laptops started to sell more than desktop computers (Singer,
2005). Given the widespread adoption of mobile technology among students, combined with
increased possibilities for network access (such as WiFi connections in classrooms and across
university campuses), and extended battery life, it is understandable that more and more students
bring laptops to the classroom. In this sense, the students themselves make computers an
important part in their educational activities. Today, teachers expect students to deliver papers
written on computers, expecting them to be able to use spell-check, count words, etc. Students
are expected to use the digital resources of university libraries, read e-mails, get information
about schedules and upload their assignments online. And there has been an increase in the usage
of consortia within the campus as the usage increases the cost benefit of electronic resources in
the given institution will prove to be effective.
DATA INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS
Survey Goals and Rationale
The survey for this study was designed with the primary goal of better understanding the
factors that motivates students to access Wi-Fi network in the university. It was also hoped that
the survey responses would illuminate and highlights the problem associated in accessing
wireless university network at a broader level. Specifically, the questionnaire explores whether
students are aware of the Wi-Fi existence and the in-depth behaviors and purpose of the
residential student using Wi-Fi network. The study is primary targeted at the students residing
within the campus and having access to the connectivity.
The average age of the respondents were at 23 years as the given sample site is a university
students. Here, the faculty perception and views were not taken into consideration as the study
was confine to the students alone.
Computer use
Computer use among the students were ask for ICT awareness and interestingly 99% of the
respondent except one said they have use or are using computer on a daily basis. This question
helps us in building asking the desired information.
Respondent Yes No
MA 84 1
Ph.D 5 0
Mphil 10 0
TOTAL 99 1
Since, the questionnaire were distributed randomly, the output result prove to be domination by
social science groups.
Ph.D scholars
internet entertainment R & D acad. Others
3 5 1 2 4
3 5 1 2 4
2 3 4 1
1 3 4 2
2 3 4 1
11 19 14 4 12
Table 6: Purpose of using computer
Respondents opinion of using computer was analyze and it was very interesting to find that
among the research scholars entertainment seems to be the purpose driven for using a computer
followed by research.
Usage of Wi-Fi:
From awareness study of the Wi-Fi, it was move to the student usage of Wi-Fi. Here, it
was found that 85% of the total population sample have use Wi-Fi and have access to be as 15%
of them have never use the facility and have no access to it.
Narrowing it down into different entity, it was found that the Post Graduate student
constitute 84 respondent and the highest population out of which 59.5 % have responded to have
used Wi-Fi and 12.75% of the population have responded negatively. On the other hand it was
very interesting to see that Ph.D scholars and M.Phil student respondent 100%.
Research Scholar in a university is provided with different scholarships and as a result
have better medium of accessing the resources in the campus.
Preference of gadget:
Preference or the medium of accessing is one of the important factors that need to be
address. From the present study, students were provided with questionnaire on their preference
of gadget and there was a holistic response to the question with 71% of the total sample
population prefers laptop as the favorite medium of accessing Wi-Fi were as 14 % uses other
medium of gadget that was not enlisted, this being the presence of latest development of new
gadget such as the presence of 3G enable phones or inbuilt Wi-Fi phone in the market. The
research scholars who have access to gadget equipment have better statistic as compared to the
Post Graduate students.
Figure 7 : Percentile representation of gadget preference of students
Speed of internet really matters in a long run as maximizing the usage will indirectly
have impact on the cost benefit of Wi-Fi installation. Higher the usage, higher is the benefit in
accessing information.
From the above illustration, it was found that only 2% of the students felt that the speed is in a
excellent speed were as the maximum felt the speed to be an average, with 37% felt good and
33% felt that it was poor. This gave the opinion that there is a mix responds of good and bad
internet speed.
It was very interesting to see that M.Phil student required no assistance to their problem, which
indicates that ICT literacy rate is high for M.Phil scholars.
Modes of assistance:
The respondents were ask on the best medium through which assistance can be provided
and it was seen that that users orientation was the highest requirement of the respondent with
72% of the total population feeling the need of users orientation.
Ph.D M.A Mphil total
user 4 58 10 72
orientation
personal 0 10 10
per group 1 8 0 9
others 0 0 0
While general conclusions could be drawn regarding results as applied to the residential
student body, the sample does not reflect the attitudes of non residential students, which may be
different, compared to those of residential students despite similar demographic variables.
Documenting the disparity between commuter and residential students is an area for future
research.
The findings of the study suggest that there is a high level of ICT awareness among
student and that the demographics of survey participants varied in terms of age, education levels
and the subject. From a sample population of 100 respondents, fifty eight (58) were male and
forty two (42) were female with an ages ranging between 20 and 29 years-old. Post graduate
responded maximum with 85% which constituted 46% male and 39% female. M.Phil on the
other hand constituted the second highest with 10% and Ph.D scholars with 5% of the total
sample group. Computer literacy among student of Pondicherry looks pretty good with 99% of
the students stating that they have either use or are using computer.
Social Science constitutes the highest number of participant with 69% and entertainment
was one of their main purposes driven in using computer. High percentage (79%) of the
population is aware of the presence of Wi-Fi and 85% of the total populations have use Wi-Fi
facility were a majority (66%) feels hostel to be the best location for surfing. It was also found
that laptop seems to be the favorite gadget in accessing Wi-Fi. On being asked about the speed of
the connectivity, 77% of the respondent were not happy with the speed and have come across
technical snag and errors. On the other side of the story, the respondent (72%) feels that
orientation on the use or assistance is required for better usage of Wi-Fi within the campus.
Given into account the findings, for better usage of Wi-Fi facility, it is therefore a need of an
hour to better understand the problems face by the users in their daily use of the system.
1. Networking management system should be able to identify and rectify the errors of
every hotspot in the campus.
2. Awareness should be conducted on the availability of the electronic resources of the
university.
3. User’s orientation in the first year of their enrolment should be conducted for
familiarizing them with the facilities available.
4. Financial subsidy should be provided to the student and a M.O.U with local supplier
should be provided for increasing usage and building ICT awareness.
5. Increase in the number of hotspot should be encouraged and better equipments for
better signal should be installed.
6. High bandwidth should be provided so as to enable the students in downloading
electronic resources.
7. Restriction to multiple sites and streaming videos should be minimized so as to enable
high usage of the academic resource available.
Therefore, there is an urgent need on the administration part to incorporate some of the
grievances of the student community and take into account the research findings of this small
study. For, the presence of Wi-Fi within the campus is a boon to the university student in
accessing electronic resources and for academic perusal. There is always a room for
improvement.
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