Internet connections will soon get simpler for students who live in residence halls.
Students will soon be able to access the Internet easier through an Ethernet card and also be able to access a new entertainment program.
“The reason we’re using Ethernet is because it’s about 300 times faster than a modem,” said Todd Richardson, technical support services director in the office of information technology.
This will continue the technological improvements that have been going on over the last few months.
Internet connections in the residence halls were recently upgraded from a 1.5-megabit connection to a six-megabit connection.
Another feature recently added to the residence halls was I-beam.
“I-beam focuses on streaming music video and audio content,” Richardson said. “You can listen to radio stations and music and a lot of other things. These things you can normally do over the Internet anyway, but we put in a satellite receiver.
“It’s very reliable, very fast, and as far as I know we are the only school in Tennessee that has done this so far.”
The I-beam is currently being considered for use in the computer labs, but expect this to remain a service for the residence halls.
“Because it’s more entertainment oriented, we haven’t made a decision on that,” Richardson said. “But we are considering getting the service to the campus as well.
One reason for the addition of the I-beam is due to the Napster craze – the computer program that lets Internet users download music through their personal computers.
According to Richardson, this is an even better program than Napster.
“What’s so special about this I-beam thing is that it lets you do streaming content and it does it very well,” he said. “You can watch movies and listen to music and it’s always fast. It’s a lot quicker than downloading from the Internet.
Richardson believes students will embrace the new technology.
“This is like a speed boost for all those things that kids really like,” he said.
“This has the digital content that everyone wants, the Napster -like stuff, the things people want to download.

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