The U.S Department of Defense Dependent Schools hopes to learn from Ball State University's experience with wireless technology, one DoD official said.
Don Alexander, network administration information technology chief for the Department of Defense, said his visit to Ball State was prompted by the university's reputation for being the most unwired college campus.
Alexander is working to create wireless networks for five high school campuses in Europe.
"Currently, we're undergoing an initiative to employ five pilot networks in the high school environment in the hopes of providing our high school students the ability to migrate into a wireless environment once they go into higher education after their senior years," Alexander said.
About a month ago, Alexander contacted O'Neal Smitherman, vice president for information technology, about Ball State's network and the technology the university has put in place.
"As we began to talk and exchange e-mails, [Alexander] expressed an interest in coming to visit us here and really learn in-depth how the network is set up, so we invited him over," Smitherman said.
During Alexander's visit, which ends Friday, Smitherman and other administrators and staff members showed Alexander around the campus and offered advice for standard problems.
"We already have the full-scale pervasive network everyone is trying to get to," Smitherman said. "We have a chance to share our experiences in solving the problems that everyone will eventually have to solve as they deploy these networks."
Specifically, they've shared how to deal with the problems that arise when a large number of students try to access a network at the same time.
Smitherman said this partnership was a good way to give back.
"We're a public institution, supported by the people of this country, so we ought to share this knowledge that we've gained as we've worked through some of these problems," he said.
Alexander said he hopes to have wireless networks up and running at five European campuses by the end of the year and looks forward to working with Ball State throughout the process.
"Hopefully the partnership we establish here this week will go on for several years," he said.
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