Free wireless internet access will no longer be offered to residents living in the College's graduate student housing at Sachem Village after Aug. 1. The Tuck School of Business, which has provided the service for the last four years, cited on-site construction and the original temporary nature of the system as the reasons for ending it.
According to associate director of real estate Tim McNamara, Sachem Village, located in West Lebanon about a mile and a half from campus, offers townhouses and single-story structures that are tailored toward graduate students with spouses or partners. For young families already burdened with the costs of a Dartmouth education and rent, paying an extra $40 to $60 a month for internet may make a difference.
Bernie Campbell, husband of graduate student Sara Campbell, said the free wireless factored into his decision to live in Sachem Village. The announcement that wireless service would end came on July 11, a little over a month after Campbell, and other residents, had moved into new units and signed new leases.
"We had no way of knowing this was a temporary thing," Campbell said. "If we had known I might feel differently about it, but no one bothered to tell us."
Installed in 2002, the wireless system at Sachem Village, the only one sponsored by the Tuck School, was designed as a temporary solution to the lack of commercial high-speed access in the area and persistent dial-up access problems.
McNamara explained that the arrival of commercial broadband access has eliminated the need for the College-sponsored system, which had been a continuing maintenance problem for Computing Services.
Director of Network Services Frank Archambeault said the interim system had been installed quickly and without a complete survey to guarantee full coverage. The College provides wired internet access when a College-owned residence is near enough to campus to be hard-wired into the campus intranet and creates wireless access for any residences close enough to be connected. Sachem Village meets neither of these requirements, stimulating the Tuck School's original sponsorship of wireless access there.
Network Services' long-term goal will be to complete an engineering study to determine if a fiber-optic link to campus combined with complete wireless coverage is economically feasible. Archambeault expects the survey to be underway in a few months, yielding results within a year.
Archambeault also added that many older buildings containing the wireless access points are being knocked down while new buildings are wired for commercial, wired broadband access. The construction will increase the number of units from 131 to 211 after construction.
Campbell, however, remains dissatisfied with the College's treatment of the residents of Sachem Village, noting that while resulting in improved facilities, construction at the site has also disrupted residents' lives and sharply increased rents. He also said that the decision to discontinue free internet might hinder some students' ability to conduct research and contact their professors.
"No one is going to start disconnecting the service in dorm rooms. Just because we live a mile away...the buildings are still owned by Dartmouth," he said.
