(Casey Chisnell, UM-Flint ITS)
This past year, UM-Flint ITS began a push to overhaul and upgrade the wireless network on the Flint campus. The wireless infrastructure upgrade entered phase one as the equipment purchased in 2010 has finally reached the end of life and end of support stage. Phase one of the project included all university-owned buildings south of the Flint River, excluding the Student Housing buildings. During this phase Flint ITS upgraded a total of 300 wireless access points across eight campus buildings and the Cummings Elementary Building off campus. Phase two will begin during this winter semester 2018, and will include the remainder of the buildings, excluding Student Housing.
In addition to the upgraded WAP devices, all campus building routers were upgraded replacing the existing nine-year-old routers. These routers will help improve stability and security, and enable faster network connections needed for classrooms and research projects. With the addition of the new routers we will soon be able to offer 10Gb connections to desktops locations, as needed. This also enables us to better utilize and participate with other Internet2 connected higher education institutions around Michigan, as well provide higher bandwidth to the Ann Arbor ARC-TS services and FLUX computing on demand services.
