CityU
has been offering the Wireless LAN (WLAN) service since 1997.
The population of registered WLAN clients has increased more
than ten folds from less than 200 at the beginning to more
than 3000 clients now.
WLAN
technology is changing rapidly and new standards are emerging
in the market. Products with higher speed and rigid security
are becoming affordable. As our WLAN is already 7 years old,
it is about time to replace the old WLAN system with a new
one in order to provide more bandwidth and better performance
in a more secure way for the benefit of our users.
The
Project
The project
was started in June 2005 and expected to take several months
to complete. The intelligent wireless LAN switching solution
from Aruba has been employed to replace the old Vernier Authentication
Server and low speed Orinoco Access Points (APs). Initially
400 new APs will be installed to provide a wider coverage
than the previous 250 APs by extending to areas such as laboratories
within departments.
Our first
phase of the implementation will include all existing areas
and we expect to complete the set up of the new WLAN and replacement
of APs before Semester A of 2005/06. Existing authentication
methods (Web and VPN logon) that we are familiar with are
still available in the new system. Users may notice that a
new login page is displayed when their PCs are attached to
the new system.
As the
migration period will take quite long, we shall try our best
to keep the transition as smooth as possible to avoid any
service interruption. If you encounter any difficulties in
using the WLAN service during the upgrade period, please contact
our CSC Help Desk or write to ccwlan@cityu.edu.hk
for our action.
Advantages
of the New System