For years, Ball State University has been at the forefront of the wireless Internet revolution, bringing our university to the top of the heap when it comes to providing wireless access to students.
A recent move, however, suggests the school is now working toward providing the same wireless access to the rest of the community as well.
According to the Muncie Star Press, Muncie has been granted an experimental six-month license from the Federal Communications Commission to test WiMAX, a system which could eventually replace Ball State's entire wireless system, while providing access to anyone within a 30-mile radius of campus.
This is great news for anyone who longs for more efficient wireless access at low consumer cost. WiMAX uses towers similar to those maintained by wireless telephone companies, providing coverage to those within a range of as much as 3,000 square miles using a single tower.
O'Neal Smitherman, vice president of information technology at Ball State, told the Star Press that a network of as few as seven or eight large WiMAX stations could at some point provide high-speed wireless access to 85 percent of Indiana's citizens, including those in remote areas.
If Indiana wants to take a lead in procurement of high-tech jobs, bringing an end to brain drain, building our wireless capability is of the utmost importance. That Ball State is leading this charge is a reason for students to stand up and take notice.
We also, however, must remain vigilant to protect our right to use this new technology.
Because wireless Internet providers would no longer need to invest in the costly running of cables, WiMAX would allow for wide distribution of wireless access to a large population at a lower cost than charged by current providers of high-speed Internet access.
The new technology would also allow Voice- Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to be used more widely. VoIP allows people to make local and long-distance calls through a broadband Internet connection, bypasses phone companies entirely.
In our high-tech future, it will be crucial that all people be able to access the Internet at higher speeds. In a state like Indiana, with a decentralized population living in rural areas, developing technology to provide access outside our cities is important. Making that technology affordable and accessible by all, however, may prove more important.
In a community where a few large corporations provide our DSL access and one behemoth corporation holds a monopoly on cable services, development of lowercost ways to provide these services are of primary concern. This holds true for students, Ball State faculty and Delaware County residents equally.
If the large corporations that provide our Internet, telephone and cable services should decide to fight the implementation of technology such as WiMAX, we'll all suffer.
As students, we should support the work our university is doing to further our technological development on a regional and national level.
More than that, however, we need to take a proactive stance and notify our state and national leaders that we won't permit them to limit our future use of this technology in the name of protecting large telecommunications providers.
Write to Jonathan at jonathansanders@justice.com
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