Beam me up -- wireless style.

Many areas of campus now offer wireless network access for staff, faculty and students. It's a bold new step for the campus in how people can hook up to the Internet and World Wide Web. And it's just beginning to spread.

Wireless technology is offered throughout Shields Library, the Physical Sciences Library and the Health Sciences Library as well as other locations on campus. It is also available in the Memorial Union, where students gather to eat, study and socialize.

Over the summer, the campus made several new locations "wireless friendly." Along with existing areas, such as the Wellman Lounge area, Bainer Hall, Kemper Hall, Engineering III, the law school's King Hall, and the Tupper Hall labs, other wireless locations now include the new Activities and Recreation Center, the Silo, the Medical Science Café and Freeborn Hall.

Wireless networks are increasingly popular with Web-surfing, laptop-carrying students. When the laptop is always at hand, any question that crosses a student's mind or any conversation that could be helped by having more information may produce the response, "Google it." And, of course, students communicate more and more with their instructors and with each other through the "ping" of e-mail. Beyond students, many faculty and staff can use greater Web access to do their jobs.

With this in mind, UC Davis has spent the past couple years exploring how to expand wireless technology on campus.

Robert Ono, IT security coordinator in Information and Educational Technology, says that communication availability anytime and anywhere is desirable for an ever growing number of wireless users at UC Davis.

"I believe the rapid growth of wireless use is the result of several factors," said Ono, "including the increased availability of wireless networking technology built into many new notebook units, decreasing costs of wireless client and access point components, growing user acceptance of wireless services and increased user expectation of wireless service availability in common areas."

Wireless networking, he said, is a topic often discussed by the Administrative Campus Computing Council, the Academic Campus Computing Council and the Technology Infrastructure Forum.

Ono chaired a campus team on wireless policy that studied the issue. "The policy will serve as the starting point for UC Davis discussions and planning in respect to wireless network responsibilities, availability, security, interference management and suitability," he said.

Zack O'Donnell, a wireless development analyst who also served with Ono on the team, said that the inexpensive nature and convenience of wireless technology has opened up a world of possibilities for UC Davis employees.

"Faculty and staff are looking at ways of using the network that they didn't think of before," said O'Donnell. "For example, professors can use it to make their research 'mobile' and other places -- such as the book store and central receiving -- can use it to track inventory."

He said the campus is working at "building the infrastructure to make this happen."

Users wishing to connect to the UC Davis wireless network can access it at http://wireless.ucdavis.edu.

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How to use UC Davis' wireless network

• Configure Your Computer. You will need to configure your computer to connect to the campus wireless network. To do so, follow the instructions that came with your wireless network interface card (NIC), and enter "moobilenet" (all lower case) as your SSID in your wireless card configurations window.
• Register Your Computer. You can register your laptop's wireless NIC Media Access Control (MAC) address with the UC Davis wireless network, which will allow it to work in the wireless locations. You need to visit the UC Davis computing accounts Web site to register for the wireless campus network, at http://computingaccounts.ucdavis.edu/. Once there, follow the link to DHCP registration.
• Authenticate. The process of registering your wireless NIC will include an additional Web-based registration when you connect to the network. Once you connect to the wireless network, open a Web browser and enter this URL: http://wireless.ucdavis.edu/. From there, follow the instructions to authenticate to the wireless network.