Comments on: Big tech on campus

College students are serving as guinea pigs for the digital lifestyle--but is tech marketing in schools getting out of control?

[frnkblk]

A small technical point

The author writes "most colleges are looking toward replacing older and slower 802.11a and 802.11b technologies with newer, faster standards, such as 802.11g".

802.11g, while newer, is not a faster standard than 802.11a. Both area designed to run at physical rate of 54 Mbps. And in the presence of 802.11b, total throughput of 802.11g will actually slow down. And 802.11a has the advantage of running in the 5 GHz spectrum, which most products support 8 non-overlapping channels, and could potentially have up to 24 channels when manufacturers develop products for the additional spectrum the FCC recently allocated.

Regards,

Frank

[iKenny]

Impractical

802.11a would be impractical for a college environment (or
many environments for that matter), because many students'
computers can only handle 802.11b, and while 802.11g can
support those older computers,802.11a can't. This would leave
many students forced to use wired connections. Many
companies today, such as Apple, do not even offer 802.11a in
their products. This is important as more students are switching
to Mac laptops.

802.11g is better...

802.11a is not a standard and will never be. 802.11b and g are
the dominate standards because they are compatable with each
other.

http://www.apple.com/airportextreme/specs.html

[alek_nedic]

802.11g

http://www.analogstereo.com/vacuum/miele_what_is_allergy.htm

on the fence

as an entering freshmen into college I found this article to be very interesting. I agree that students of this day and age should be very much exposed to the technology of today and use it to all of its' fullest benefits, however I feel that sometimes we tend to depend a little too much on technology. I do not think that we should depend so much on computers that we are taught a class by them, I feel that the reason we have come from all different places and pay such a great amount of money for an education is to be educated by some of the most intelligent people, and not by a computer screen. But then again, on the other hand I do agree with students receiving free iPods, i mean for what we pay to go to a school, i think that the school can scrafice some money each year to its' incoming frehmen and also transfer students.