Tuesday, February 8, 2011 I

Wireless in

TechNews

MSV:

upgrade or downgrade?

By Mark McGuire
TECHNEWS WRITERS

Ever since my family got high—speed inter—
net, I’ve had to deal with poor service, shoddy
hardware, and deplorable connection quality.
The problems only got worse when we started
using wireless. It was a constant trial to posi—
tion access points around the house, so that
every room got good signal strength, and even
then the connection was worse than a wired
one. It got to the point where I convinced my
father to put holes in the walls and purchase
network cable, so I could run it through the
walls and crawlspace of our home. Afterward,
the few problems we had were because of our
phone line.

These previous experiences with wireless
were what caused me to be skeptical of the
wireless upgrade to MSV. I was stunned when I
got the email from my RA, explaining that only
wireless internet would be available in MSV.
For me, this is about as close to a deal—breaker
as it can get. I would have seriously considered
looking for an apartment, if that were a viable
option. My fears were confirmed on move—in
day, and since then things have only slightly
improved. At the time of writing, I have lost
connection to a voice chat server over twenty
times. The longest I have stayed connected is
ten minutes. The other users of the server have
not lost connection at all. I have spent eighty
dollars on network equipment, including ex—
ternal antennas, but the connection is only
slightly better than an old wireless USB dongle
I purchased 5 years ago.

OTS surveyed MSV over the last month,
and when they came to my room, I was sure
to express my dissatisfaction with the internet
ever since the switch to wireless. I know that
my friends in MSV did as well, but the ques—

 

tion remains: how will OTS solve this prob—
lem? I’m not a qualified network technician,
even though I have taken courses on it, and
I don’t know the costs of the solutions that
OTS has to consider, but I do believe that
there is a most reasonable course of action.
Bring back the wired internet.

I know the big thing about the switch to
wireless was the upgrade in speed, but did
we really see a significant increase? Previ—
ously dorm rooms in MSV were connected
by 10Mbps (roughly 1 megabyte per sec—
ond) lines. The average speed I experienced
was over 250 kilobytes per second, and the
maximum was one megabyte per second.
The connection was reasonably stable, with
a few outages because of hardware. After the
upgrade, I’ve had average speeds of around
400 kilobytes per second with a very rare
maximum of 1.6 megabytes per second. The
connection quality, however, is laughable. I
entirely lose connection tens of times a day,
and even when I’m connected I get frequent
slowdowns and packet loss.

So at the cost of reliability we have gained
a small improvement in connection speed. A
trade—off that could never be justified to any
user. What can we do? Rewiring MSV with
new cable would be costly and money has
already been spent on the wireless upgrade.
Why not just bring back wired in addition to
the wireless? There’s no need to replace the
cables to the rooms, we already have wireless
for speed. Why not just plug the rooms back
into the network switches? That way latency—
dependent applications can run without dis—
connecting, and users of iPads and laptops
can still use the improved wireless. From my
perspective, it seems to be a simple, cheap so—
lution that everyone benefits from.

(Photo courtesy iitundergrad/flickr)

HI-

 

VLADA GAISINA opinion@technewsiit.com

Vis-a-vis: Violate this!

By Vlada
Gaisina
OPINION EDITOR

According to the United Nations, one
of every three women on the planet will be
physically or sexually abused in her lifetime.
(www.vday.org)

Every day, 1600 women and more than
10 000 newborns die from preventable com—
plications during pregnancy and childbirth.
Almost 99% of maternal and 90% of neona—
tal mortalities occur in the developing world.
(WHO, www.who. int)

In 2005, 1,181 women in the United States
were murdered by an intimate partner. That’s
an average of three women every day. Of
all the women murdered in the US, about
one—third were killed by an intimate partner.
(Bureau of Justice Statistics, as reported by
the National Organization for Women, www.
now.org)

The list of similar statistics trails on, each
more disturbing than the other. According to
WHO, “the United Nations defines violence
against women as any act of gender—based
violence that results in, or is likely to result
in, physical, sexual or mental harm or suffer—
ing to women, including threats of such acts,
coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty,
whether occurring in public or in private
life.” This includes not only domestic vio—
lence, but also sexual harassment and abuse
by authority figures, traflicking, child mar—
riages and sexual abuse in conflict situations.

We live in the 21st century. Think about
that, and reread the statistics above. Did it
feel any different?

Meanwhile, women in Afghanistan resort
to self—immolation to escape virtually every
form of abuse, a transgender woman in DC
is arrested for being assaulted by an off—du—
ty cop, and a Long Island DA said that the
murders of four women, whose bodies were
found in Suffolk County, were “a direct result
of their business as prostitutes.”

Volumes can be written on the inherently
detrimental effect of violence, but even be—
yond that the point needs to be reinforced
that domestic violence or violence against
anyone because of their gender, race, sexual—
ity, ethnicity or social status is truly despica—
ble, abhorrent, and vile. Nothing less would
do.

If there is any hope of ever curbing vio—

lent behavior against women and minorities,
this approach needs to be taken in every class—
room. Those who adopt this view at an early
age not only will refrain from gender—based
violence, they will be outraged by its instances
elsewhere and be compelled to address it. I
applaud the schools that already have a zero—
tolerance policy for such behavior, but unfor—
tunately we continue to see many examples of
disastrous effects of intolerance — the Rutgers
suicide being but one of them.

And when was the last time domestic vio—
lence got any coverage by the media? There has
been hardly any, since the Rihanna and Chris
Brown incident from 2009, yet it continues to
happen daily. According to the National Insti—
tute of Justice (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov), 1.3
million women and 835 000 men are physically
assaulted by an intimate partner in the United
States annually. Of course, in this ADD culture
of Twitter and instant updates nobody pays at—
tention unless celebrities are involved.

Many websites provide further statistics,
as well resources for the victims and how—to
guides for the activists. See, for example, Stop
Rape Now (UN Action against violence in
conflict), United Nations Secretary—Generals
Report on Violence against Children (www.
unicef.org), the Sexual Violence Research Ini—
tiative (www.svri.org), and WHO Multi—Coun—
try Study on Women’s Health and Violence
Against Women.

To make a more immediate impact right
in the IIT community, come to a performance
of the Vagina Monologues this weekend! The
Monologues are performed as part of the
V—Day campaign, originated by author and
activist Eve Ensler (www.vday.org). Since its
inception in 1998, the movement has contin—
ued to grow, spreading to 140 countries, with
over 5,400 benefit events taking place in 2010.
V—Day’s mission is an organized response to
violence against women and girls, with an
oft—quoted slogan “Until the violence stops,”
signifying the intent to make the world an ag—
gression—free place for women, however long
it might take.

IIT’s performances will be held on Satur—
day, February 12, at 6PM in the Pritzker Club
and on Sunday, February 13, at 3PM. The ad—
mission fee is $5 and 90% of the money raised
will go directly to Porchlight Counseling, who
provide support to college victims of sexual as—
sault, as well as outreach and education pro—
grams to help prevent it. The other 10% goes
to the V—Day campaign. Come enjoy some free
snacks, cheer on the 13 women performers and
give the violence a proverbial middle finger.

 

CMC Professional Development Seminars

Tuesday, February 8th — Researching Companies — 12:50 — 1:50pm
Wednesday, February 9th — Interviewing — 12:50 — 1:50pm
Wednesday, February, 9th - Communication — 3:00 — 4:00pm
Thursday, February 10th — Working a Career Fair — 12:50 — 1:50pm
Friday, February 11th — Resume Critique Sessions — 2:00 — 4:00pm

CAREER FAIR WEEK! (all seminars at 5pm)
February, 14th — Creating a Quality Resume

February, 15th — Interviewing

February, 16th — Researching Companies

February, 17th — 30 Second Pitch

February, 18th — Working a Career Fair
February, 215t — How to Ask/Answer Questions — Webcast and In person
February, 22nd — Image Management — Webcast and In person

You can RSVP at www.cmc.iit.edu