NYURoam Design

ITS has designed the NYURoam wireless network for maximum security, flexibility, and efficiency. For those who are interested, NYURoam infrastructure and IP addressing information is included below.

Operational Restrictions

Several operational restrictions apply to the NYURoam network:

• NYURoam is an IP-only network. No other protocols (e.g., IPX, AppleTalk, LAT, NETBUI, etc.) are supported.
• No services are offered on the wireless network's backbone (e.g., mail servers, web servers, news servers, etc.).
• No direct, peer-to-peer connectivity between wireless clients is possible utilizing the local wireless infrastructure.

Refer to the Wireless Policies for an outline of important rules and responsibilities.

Infrastructure and IP Addressing

NYURoam is a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS)-based radio network, in the unlicensed 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency ranges, supporting the IEEE 802.11b/g and 802.11a standards.

NYURoam's wired transport is a fiber optic backbone infrastructure that runs in parallel to NYU-NET's infrastructure. Access Points (APs) are located at the network's extremities. These devices serve to "bridge" the radio LAN and wired LAN. They accept radio-based connections or "associations" from wireless clients and move data between those clients and wired network resources. The APs interface to the wired network using 100 Mbit/sec interfaces to Ethernet switches. These switches, utilizing multiple Virtual LANs (VLANs), pass data along via either 100 Mbit/sec or GigE (1000 Mbit/sec) interfaces, depending on the model of the switch, to one of NYU-NET's access routers.

NYURoam does not require you to register the hardware address of your wireless NIC. Any properly configured NIC and wireless client will be issued an IP address via DHCP once you have authenticated with your valid NYU NetID and password.

Page last reviewed: August 21, 2009