CAIT Sponsored Wireless Ethernet LAN Service Description

CAIT, as well as many of the Harvard schools, have implemented a number of wireless Ethernet systems for personal computing from many of the facilities and public spaces on campus. To identify where wireless access is available, please reference the wireless signal coverage maps at: http://www.wireless.harvard.edu/. The technology used, based on the IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN standard, works in the FCC unlicensed 2.4Ghz radio band, a shared part of the radio spectrum.

The wireless Ethernet system is intended as a supplement to other computing resources on campus.  The speed and performance of this network may vary with distance from an access point and the total number of users on the system.  However, the network should be more than adequate for checking e-mail and for general Internet use. In addition, there are other wireless LAN devices that exist in the market place that also employ the same 2.4GHz frequency band used for this wireless Ethernet system. This may result in the possibility of interference to users of the wireless LAN service. See Airspace Guidelines for more information.

We expect that some functions, such as streaming video or large downloads will have better performance over a wired connection. Wired ports are available in most conference and meeting rooms and should be the preferred method for connectivity for such functions.