Wireless 2.0 Operational Trial Information
Buildings involved in trial
Information Technology Services is undergoing an operational trial of the next generation of Penn State wireless services in a controlled sampling of buildings on the University Park campus. Specific buildings and areas included in the operational trial are located in the Central campus, Shortledge Mall, and East Sub-Campus portions of University Park and include:
- Willard Building (Entire Building and outside area between Schwab and Carnegie Bldgs.)
- Life Sciences Building (Ground Floor-available in six General Purpose Classrooms, #9 through #14 only)
- Telecommunications Building (Entire Building)
- Thomas Building (1st and 2nd Floors, and outside plaza area between Thomas and Ritenour Bldgs.)
- Business Building (Entire Building and adjacent outdoor areas)
- Ag. Science and Industries (General Purpose Classrooms and Portions of the Ground Floor, 1st, 2nd and 4th Floors)
- Food Science Building (Entire Building and Creamery Outdoor Seating area)
- Forest Resources Building (Entire Building and adjacent outdoor areas)
If you are in one of these buildings, or noted surrounding areas, we encourage you to open up your laptop, search for the psu trial network, and test the next generation operational trial version of the Penn State Wireless service!
How to get connected
To get connected to the Penn State Wireless 2.0 operational trial service, you'll need:
- A Penn State Access Account.
- A laptop with an 802.11 compatible wireless network card.
- Instructions for Windows | Macintosh | Unix/Linux
Features and Benefits
The Penn State Wireless 2.0 operational trial incorporates recent 802.1X wireless authentication and encryption methods that are aimed at enabling an improved level of security and improved performance to include:
- Ease of use. You no longer have to download a VPN or relaunch a VPN session when moving from building to building. Just open your laptop and you'll see the 2.0 operational trial psu network.
- Enables overall improvement of spotty wireless coverage between buildings.
- Requires less client updates.
- More open. Works on more platforms that were previously unable to use the VPN because of proprietary standards.
- Less instances of renewing IP addresses (wireless sessions.)
- Fewer connection and reconnection issues than with the VPN. Instantly connect and reconnect.
- Decreased authentication load and timeout issues.
Training and Support Sessions
To facilitate participation in the operational trial, ITS will be hosting training and support sessions for both IT professionals and end users.
- June 25, 2008 in Business Building room 126
- 10:00am
- 12:00pm
- 2:00pm
Tell us your experience
- We'd like to hear about your experience of getting connected to the Penn State Wireless 2.0 Operational Trial. Please use our feedback form to tell of your experience.
Get Help
- Contact the ITS Help Desks at 204 Wagner Building or 6 Willard Building for assistance. Stop in, call 814-863-1035 or 814-863-2494, or write to helpdesk@psu.edu for assistance.
Technical specifications
The purpose of the operational trial is to test new equipment and technology and the principles associated with Penn State's next generation of wireless services. While the new service is not yet completely defined and in production, many of the basic principles of the service have been outlined including an SSID using 802.1X (EAP-TTLS-PAP) authentication and WPA-TKIP encryption. Because some clients may not yet be able to easily set up, configure and/or support the 802.1X operational trial service, the legacy Penn State Wireless service that uses the VPN overlay for authentication and encryption, will continue to operate simultaneously with the .1X operational trial service. In the case of the operational trial service, the 802.1X network identifier (SSID) is psu and the legacy VPN network identifier (SSID) remains pennstate.