There’s a very cool event going on today on the Northern Michigan University (NMU) campus. In conjunction with the ten-year anniversary of its laptop-for-every-student (and faculty and staff) program, the university is launching a WiMAX network and giving away nearly 3,000 WiMAX-enabled laptops to students. Other students with older laptops will soon be able to get USB adapters for access to the school’s network.
As far as anyone seems to know, this is the only stand-alone university WiMAX system in the country. Motorola built the network (further WiMAX momentum in a busy WiMAX year), and because of NMU’s Educational Broadband Service license, the university can actually extend access to local school and municipal offices in the area. The reach of the WiMAX network goes beyond school grounds and will be accessible at certain sites off campus for university-associated subscribers.
I’ll try to update this post later on with pics from today’s kick-off event. Almost makes me wish I was headed back to school.
UPDATE: New pics below from the Northern Michigan University campus event earlier today.
Filed under: Internet, Motorola News, Networks, WiMAX
