No longer will campus be subject to as many "wireless dead zones" as dramatized on cell phone commercials. Since 2005, Physical Plant employees have worked with major wireless vendors to better connect patrons of the MSU community.
Within the last four years, Nextel, Sprint, Verizon and Metro PCS have approached Planner/Inspector/Analyst III/Supervisor Jeff Carpenter and Engineer IV Bob Gress to increase the coverage and capacity of their networks within the limits of MSU's campus.
Carpenter said that the cellular companies tell him MSU's campus is "one of the biggest holes in the state" when it comes to cell phone reception. But with the extreme demand for cell phone service at a large university like MSU, major vendors are willing to improve service at no cost to the university. Increasing coverage means users are more likely to have signal, while increasing capacity means that the network can support more simultaneous users in a given area.
"Walk around campus and try to find somebody without a cell phone," Carpenter said. "Just about everyone uses one and depends on it everywhere they go."
Currently, there are 55 outdoor nodes, or antenna sites, scattered across campus that connect MSU users to Nextel, Sprint, Verizon and MetroPCS networks. The antenna sites are connected to each company’s network over the campus’s underground fiber-optic system, which is maintained by Telecommunication Systems.
Workers that helped the cellular companies install the sites on buildings include Broadband Communications Mechanic IIs Bob Cupp and Nick Tijerina, Engineering Aide IV Kevin Curtis, Planner/Inspector/Analyst II Bruce Van Aken, Carpenter II Mark McKay, Engineer IV/Supervisor Rick Johnson and the roofing and masonry crews. "We are filling a need by improving service in the community," Carpenter said.
Carpenter also said that MSU is one of the first universities in the country to enter into long-term agreements directly with each company, not through a third party, and that peer institutions are now looking to MSU for advice on how to negotiate their own agreements. He added that MSU is engaged in discussion with additional cellular companies to implement similar solutions in the near future.
February 12, 2009