FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is a Wireless Network?

A: Information Services has deployed Wireless LAN technology to help augment traditional network access. Wireless LAN networking offers students, faculty, and staff the ability to gain access to both the DePaul Network and the Internet without being tied to a wired network connection in an office or classroom. Network access is available in places where it was prohibitive to install wired connections. This new connectivity makes it easy for people with laptops to move around campus with ease while staying connected to the network.

Q: Who can use DePaul's Wireless Network?

A: Only current students, faculty and staff are permitted to access the network using wireless LAN technology. At some point in the future, this may change to include alumni and guests of the university.

Q: What do I need to get started?

A: All you need is a wireless card that supports the IEEE 802.11b or g standard and a device to connect to the network with all current security updates and patches installed.

Q: Where can I use wireless?

A: See the Wireless Coverage Maps located on this site for a list of areas covered by the existing network. It is our future goal to make all campuses completely wirelessly accessible.

Q: Can I install my own wireless access point?

A: No, such as installation is against network policy. Wireless LANs, although making use of unlicensed airspace, make networking difficult when the use of the air space is uncoordinated within the university. Users deploying their own access points can jeopardize the integrity of the existing wireless network. For instance, wireless users may unintentionally connect to rogue access points, making connectivity either difficult or impossible. Furthermore, rogue access points may severely jeopardize the security of the DePaul University network if they are not secured and managed in compliance with the Information Service's standards. If you or your group needs additional wireless LAN access, please contact Information Services. This will also ensure you and your group are in compliance with current standards and policies and it will also save you time and money.

Q: What is the wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 specification?

A: 802.11 is a committee of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), an international standards organization. This committee promotes various wireless local area network (LAN) standards for the computer internetworking community. In particular, the current 802.11b working group has defined a very popular standard that is being rapidly deployed within many commercial networks. More information about the 802.11 committee and each of its working groups can be found at http://www.ieee802.org/11/.

Q: How fast is IEE 802.11b/g?

A: The standard specifies theoretical speeds up to about 11 Mb/s (802.11b) or 54Mb/s (802.11g) of shared capacity. Real world speed tests show up to 3Mb/s (802.11b) and 15Mb/s (802.11g) in perfect conditions. Most of the wired LAN connections at DePaul have a minimum usually range from 10 to 100 Mb/s dedicated per user. The wireless speeds are obviously much lower than traditional wired LANs, however, the throughput is more than adequate for general use. With some equipment, transmission speeds rise and fall as the quality of the connection changes, similar to the operation of a traditional modem.

Q: Is Information Services planning on deploying 802.11a or 802.11n technologies?

A: Information Services has investigated deploying 802.11a, but the increased promised speeds are at a cost of distance limitations. Information Services at this point will continue to deploy 802.11b/g and skip the 802.11a deployment. Information Services will continue to evaluate all new wireless technologies including 802.11n as they are released, make recommendations and assist with deployment if warranted.

Q: How secure are Wireless LANs?

A: Unfortunately, standards-based wireless LAN technology is very insecure. Since data traverses the airwaves, network data is susceptible to eavesdropping by anyone within the wireless LAN area. The wireless LAN can often extend outside of the university's physical premises. For this reason, the wireless LANs are inherently not trusted and users must take extra precautions to ensure the privacy of their data and security of their hosts. Information Services strongly urges wireless LAN users to make use of secure network applications such as SSH and SSL. Using TELNET, FTP and HTTP without encryption is strongly discouraged. Information Services is deploying wireless LANs in as secure a fashion as possible.

Q: What about the wired equivalency protocol (WEP)? Isn't It Secure?

A: WEP is a security practice for wireless networks. In recent research, WEP has been broken within a few minutes of passive eavesdropping by an attacker. While we are taking extra precautions beyond WEP, it is imperative that users employ secure applications on top of the wireless network such as SSH and SSL. DePaul is phasing out its existing wireless network deployed with WEP for a more secure SSL VPN based solution.