No Ethernet ports at uni accommodation?

[Adam C]

Hey there, I'm going to edge hill university starting from September to study computer networks and security, though there are no Ethernet ports at the accommodation on campus, only a wireless connection.

They have computers in each room though I'm bringing my own for the sake of it having better graphica capabilities and better storage etc, though my current PC doesn't have a wireless card in it. Do you reckon the uni would be able to give me a physical connection through a port? If not what wireless cards would you recommend that give the best reliability and stability?

Reading something about their network on the accommodation website it mentions that if your games console needs a physical connection to the internet they will be able to send an engineer to activate a blocked off port for you, do you think this would be extended to computers?

 

[bill001g]

I suspect they have nothing special likely just basic 802.11n maybe dual band if you are lucky. Likely any inexpensive nic either usb or pci would work.

If you really need a ethernet port for a device that can not run wireless you can use a client-bridge. These are sold under many names, the simplest ones are called media adapters or game adapters and are used on tv or game consoles that do not support wifi. Many wireless extender/repeaters have this function also but they tend to be a little more complex to setup because they have other features.

To even give you actual port the wires would have to exist in the walls already and they would have to have a switch to connect the wires to on the other end. If it does not already exist I suspect the answer will be no it would be very expensive to install.

Depending on how they implement the security on the wireless they may not allow ethernet because they do not have the software to verify who is using the port....wireless has a lot of options if they run in enterprise mode.

 

[king3pj]

Hey there, I'm going to edge hill university starting from September to study computer networks and security, though there are no Ethernet ports at the accommodation on campus, only a wireless connection.

They have computers in each room though I'm bringing my own for the sake of it having better graphica capabilities and better storage etc, though my current PC doesn't have a wireless card in it. Do you reckon the uni would be able to give me a physical connection through a port? If not what wireless cards would you recommend that give the best reliability and stability?

Reading something about their network on the accommodation website it mentions that if your games console needs a physical connection to the internet they will be able to send an engineer to activate a blocked off port for you, do you think this would be extended to computers?

That's all going to depend on your University's policies. I lived in the dorms at my university for the 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 school years so my experience is a little dated at this point. We provided our own computers but there was a pretty strict data cap to keep people from wasting university bandwidth on torrents.

Since they are providing computers they may not allow you to connect your own. They may be heavily controlling the computers they provide to make sure you are running the security settings they want and they could even block the installation of software they don't want like Bittorrent clients. They can basically lock the network down by not allowing students to use their own PCs.

At my university we could connect to WiFi or ethernet but the first time you connected a new device you had to open the browser and log in to your student account before you were granted full access to the internet. They matched MAC addresses to user accounts and you could only have one authenticated machine at a time. You were also required to have one of their approved virus scanners installed and up to date or you would not be granted access to the network. They somehow scanned our computers to make sure they met the safety requirements.

They did make exceptions for game consoles but you had to physically carry them down to the IT department so they could plug it into their network and get the MAC address. They would then tie the console's MAC address to your student account so it was exempt from the browser login requirements. It was also exempt from the data caps.

It was an awesome 1Gbps connection for both upload and download. You were pretty much guaranteed to get host advantage for all your 360 games like Gears of War.

 

[king3pj]

If they will allow you to connect your own computer a cheap USB WiFi dongle like this one will probably be much simpler than getting the university to open up an ethernet port for you.

http://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-WN725N-Wireless-Adapter-150Mbps/dp/B008IFXQFU/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1436546717&sr=1-1&keywords=usb+wifi+adapter

It's only $10 and it's small enough that you won't even notice it's there once you plug it in. You could go with something with a bigger external antenna but my guess is that the WiFi signal will be pretty strong in the dorms so that wouldn't be necessary.

It maxes out at 150Mbps but there is a decent chance their wireless access points won't go any higher than that anyways.

I'm normally against WiFi for any device that has an ethernet port but Universities tend to have pretty strict polices and trying to get an ethernet hookup when they don't typically support that will probably be more hassle than it's worth.

 

[Adam C]

Thanks for the replies guys, I looked at the website a bit more and like bill said it seems that they don't really have security policies for the physical connection of PCs. Though for consoles they inspect them and such. You are allowed to bring your own PC, laptop etc thank god so I'll be fine for that!

Got no idea on the speeds of the internet, they havent listed them anywhere but hopefully they won't be some slow speed. I sent a message to the ICT part of the uni to see if it would be possible for a port to be enabled in my accommodation when I join, ill reply when they get back!

Meanwhile I found this on amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-WDN4800-Wireless-Express-Adapter/dp/B007GMPZ0A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436564797&sr=8-1&keywords=wireless+pci
Seems a pretty good card for wireless? What do you think of it?