In order to improve the convenience of accessing and using
secure wireless, ITS will implement changes to wireless access on the Mountain campus
starting September 19 through September 26. This change is the result of feedback
received in the faculty and staff survey conducted in the spring of 2011. Much
of the feedback stated that accepting the wireless splash page terms and
conditions and connecting to the NAU VPN was too cumbersome.
Academic and administrative buildings in the Central campus
will be changed on September 19, followed by changes to similar buildings in
the North campus on September 21 and to buildings in the South campus on
September 26. This will be implemented in all academic and administrative buildings
that currently display the splash page. The few remaining administrative
buildings with the older legacy wireless technology will not be affected.
Resident halls have already had similar changes to their wireless networks and
will not be affected by this implementation.
When a building is converted you will no longer see the
current SSIDs that include the building number, for example NAU-B17-B and NAU-B17-G.
These will be replaced by new SSIDs, NAU-Public and NAU-Secure. These new SSIDs
will be the same in all affected buildings following the changes.
NAU-Public will still support 802.11b and 802.11g wireless
clients and is primarily intended for guests without NAU network access
credentials. This network is not secure so use of VPN access is strongly
encouraged. Terms and conditions of a splash page will still need to be
accepted each time this network is accessed.
NAU-Secure will only support 802.11g wireless clients and
can only be accessed by those with NAU network access credentials. A splash
page will not be presented and VPN access will not be required to access NAU
network resources. The first time you connect you will be asked to supply your login
credentials and possibly asked to accept a security certificate. After this
your communications are secured with encryption. Subsequent access in any building with this
network will not require logging in again until your password expires.
Older laptops running the Windows XP operating system may have
problems connecting to the NAU-Secure network but should connect to the
NAU-Public network instead, which will remain as it was before the changes. For
support, faculty and staff should call the Solution Center at 523-1511, and students
should call the Student Technology Center at 523-9294.