All Bay State Road residences will receive high-speed Internet connections by fall move-in, as Boston University continues plans to wire select rooms on campus by the end of 2001.
While there are plans to wire residences on Commonwealth Avenue and Beacon Street, the majority of Beacon Street will have to wait until the end of the calendar year, according to Jim Stone, director of consulting services for the Office of Information Technology, who said the goals are realistic and feasible.
“Our target date for completion is the end of 2001,” Stone said. “A majority of the project will be completed by September and some residual work will be completed by the end of 2001.”
City and state governments have jurisdiction over where cables can and cannot be placed, he said.
“The wiring of any building at this University involves a number of city and state authorities, since we don’t own all the property that residences reside on,” Stone said. “There are bridges to cross and manhole covers to deal with. We need to get a lot of permits secured.”
Although getting permits to run wires is difficult, the hardest part of the process is snaking the cable underground.
“There’s a conduit system with electricity, gas and telephone lines, and all of these things run underneath the streets, sidewalks and across company lines,” Stone said. “That can get to be very problematic.”
After the wires are in place, hooking them up to ResNet is merely a formality, he said.
“Wiring the building isn’t difficult. We just have to connect the lines to the network,” Stone said.
Wiring the cables to room jacks is easy but intrusive. According to Stone, no work will occur while school is in session and rooms are occupied.
Delays are possible but not expected, he added.
“There are unknowns in the process and things you can’t know ahead of time. You figure them out when you start digging up a street,” Stone said. “This is the fifth year of this project, and I’d like to think by now we’re very good at anticipating these type of issues.”
Although IT plans to finish the project by the end of the year, Stone said he wouldn’t make any promises.
“That’s our goal, and every effort is being made to complete that goal,” Stone said. “We’re putting every resource we have into completing it. However, I’m not going to use the words ‘guarantee’ or ‘promise’ because I cannot predict the future.”
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