All the residence halls on campus will receive a technology makeover by next semester.Residents such as Matt Schexnayder, biological chemistry freshman, and their computers will no longer be constrained to the wall by an Ethernet cord when the 17 residence halls — which includes East and West Campus apartments — go wireless.Residential Life and Information Technology Services teamed up last semester to give every dorm room and on-campus                 apartment wireless Internet connectivity by fall 2009.Residence halls already have wireless networks in common areas — lobbies, patios, study rooms, kitchens and laundry rooms — but not in individual dorm rooms.”Our buildings have been limited wireless up until recently,” said ResLife Director Steve Waller. “We looked at what other schools were doing and struck an agreement to go wireless 100 percent.”Adding access points could cost up to $700,000 in installation fees, Waller said. This number does not include operational costs.”We have to pay for upgrading the equipment,” he said. “Every so many years, we will be upgrading as technology moves forward.”ResLife proposed a one-time 1 percent rent increase to students to fund the wireless connectivity. But in a trade-off with the phone service in each room, the fee could be eliminated.A ResLife survey found 97 percent of students living on-campus didn’t use the hard phone line, Waller said.”They’re all using cell phones,” Waller said. “And my guess is it’s probably closer to 98 or 99 percent now.”An active phone line is included in the price of rent, and students will still have the choice to keep the phone line. Waller said by trading off the phone service students aren’t using, the 1 percent fee increase can be avoided.Installation in the Engineering Residential College, or South Hall, and the Business Residential College, or West Hall, were completed in November. Broussard Hall, home of IT Residential College, was completed before winter break.”When we built [South Hall and West Hall], I had them pre-wired on anticipation of going wireless,” Waller said. “We’re in the process now of designing the remainder of the buildings.”All rooms have hardware capability, but wireless will give students more freedom throughout the hall, Waller said. Once completed, each room will have both wired and wireless Internet connections.”As we complete them, we will turn them on and let students take advantage of the technology,” he said. “We will not take away hard ports because those will probably go to 1[GB] in the near future.”Brent Richard, biological sciences sophomore and Highland Hall resident, said wireless connectivity would give him the ability to study in the quietness of his room instead of the lobby.”Just to have it to where you can lie in your bed at night and watch YouTube or just surf the Internet would be awesome because you have the freedom of anywhere in your room to sit down,” he said.Matthew McKey, political science freshman, said he’s ready to move about his room without the restrictions of an Internet cable.”Since moving into Louise Garig [Hall], I’ve always had to wire my connection, which is really inconvenient,” he said. “You can’t [be mobile] with a wire unless you had a 25-foot wire, which is just a ridiculous amount of wiring.”—-Contact Leslie Presnall at [email protected]