News

Academic networks getting upgrade

By Samira Zaidi
News Reporter

A campus-wide recabling of the network system, affecting only academic buildings and labs, is in the works for faster connections and a more secure transmission of data throughout the University community.

This work, contracted out to Woodland Networking Solutions, will allow academic areas to keep up with the higher bandwidth demand that the current cables do not support. Workers said the project should be complete within two months.

Contractors will install a hub, or switch, that all individual computers are plugged into and that will drive the higher speed, William Moon, UH microsystems analyst II, said.

"Basically what theyire doing is running new fireproof cabling because the cabling that exists now doesnit support the higher bandwidth -- essentially the amount of traffic," he said. "Itis like theyire making the freeway bigger."

Moon and fellow analyst David Thompson said the new CAT-5 wiring being installed allows for higher speed. CAT-5 will effectively allow the network to handle data 10 times more quickly, as the new wiring supports data transmission of up to 100 megabits per second. The old wiring only supports up to a 10-megabit transmission speed.

"The intention is to bring all academic areas up to speed, and some may not have funding or have already had the upgrade to the higher bandwidth," Moon said.

The new wiring is being installed from the attics of most buildings.

"They have to crawl in the attics and drop the cabling down," Thompson said. "It is a total replacement of wires, and although they arenit taking the old ones out, the old network will be useless."

The network is spread across the campus with one central location, so e-mail sent from one computer may pass through several others before arriving at its intended recipient.

Sub-netting, the analysts said, allows for a more secure connection, where computers in one building will be a part of their own network. Communication between the computers in the network should be faster and safer with the new set-up.

"Thereis no reason that a message sent by an individual needs to make its way through every computer on campus," Moon said. "Thereis a security issue that someone might have the ability to capture that information."
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