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The Anderson School of Management will become the latest segment of UCLA to surf the World Wide Web outside the confines of buildings.

After Feb. 2, students will be able to access the Internet while eating in the Marion Anderson Courtyard using a laptop computer equipped with a wireless card.

The installation of wireless Internet access at Anderson was a natural step, said Jason Frand, associate dean of computing services at Anderson.

“Wireless is an inevitable technology that will eventually be everywhere,” Frand said.

Other universities, such as Johns Hopkins University, have already established a campus-wide wireless network; UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California have networks covering most of their campuses. Some schools list the feature on brochures they send to recruit potential students.

UCLA’s effort to do the same – motivated partially by the desire to remain competitive with these schools – hit a roadblock when money for installation and maintenance at a campus-wide level was not available, said Eddie Urenda, manager of the Bruin OnLine help desk.

Now the effort to provide wireless access all over campus is decentralized – instead of potentially paying for wireless access for the whole school, Campus Technology Services requested individual departments configure their departmental wireless Internet access using the main campus standards, Urenda said.

Students could then use the same procedure to log onto the web anywhere on campus, rather than memorizing a number of different login procedures for different areas on campus.

Wireless access was first installed on campus in November 2001.

Since then, wireless routers have been added to a limited number of areas on campus, including the first floor of Ackerman Union and the Northern Lights coffeehouse.

Several students listed the limited coverage area as the primary reason they do not go wireless.

Peter Liu, a fifth-year sociology student, said the connection was not always reliable.

“It cuts in and out depending on where you are,” he said.

More than 2,600 distinct users have logged on one or more times since wireless access was first implemented on campus, Urenda said.

One student said wireless Internet on campus is not necessary.

“I don’t see the need for it, for me,” said Selina Zhong, a second-year business economics student. “If I want to use the Internet, I go to the library and use it there.”

Most people with a laptop computer equipped with a wireless card can access the BOL homepage when they are within coverage areas. The BOL site, www.bol.ucla.edu, contains directions to access other Web sites.

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