SINGAPORE--Local undergraduates on exchange programs may soon enjoy Wi-Fi roaming at overseas universities if a plan by the National University of Singapore (NUS) takes off.
Taking a cue from telcos and network equipment makers, the university is planning to launch a wireless interoperability program with its foreign partners such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University within the next six months, said Tommy Hor, director of NUS's computer center.
Interoperability between different wireless networks has long been fingered as one of the roadblocks towards mass adoption of Wi-Fi technology. Singaporean mobile operators, as well as Intel and the republic's Info-comms industry regulator have launched a series of initiatives in the past year aimed at achieving seamless commercial wireless roaming both locally and internationally.
If successful, the NUS project could be one of the first and largest cross-border Wi-Fi interoperability arrangements in the education sector. Besides MIT and Stanford, the Singaporean university has existing academic and research partnerships with a bevy of overseas institutions including China's Peking University, Technical University of Munich, University of Nottingham in the U.K. and Harvard University in the U.S.
While its international roaming plans are still in the works, NUS has already taken the first step on a local level. The school today unveiled an interoperable wireless network along with nine other tertiary institutions including Nanyang Technological University, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Republic Polytechnic, Singapore Management University, Singapore Polytechnic and Temasek Polytechnic. With the launch, staff and students can access the Internet and internal resources for free from the campuses of any of the 10 participating institutions.
The schools plan to expand the wireless network to include public Wi-Fi hotspots in locations such as restaurants and cafes around the island in the near future.
Besides the wireless collaboration, the 10 institutions will also cooperate in other areas such as sharing of technical knowledge and practices, as well as identifying joint project possibilities such as bulk IT purchases.
As proof of the merits of such an alliance, the schools said they managed to negotiate for a bulk tender of Internet bandwidth last year which allowed them to double their network capacity for less than half the costs.
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