In an effort to provide a more user-friendly and efficient wireless network for the DU community, University Technology Services (UTS) has introduced Pioneer Net this fall, an alternative to the DU Net (Cisco) VPN client.

The switch will enable the DU community to be automatically connected to the Internet at all times, and the VPN client will be phased out in 10 months to one year.

Wireless Network Specialist Marcelo Lew, of UTS, said the reasons for the change were: the VPN client was slower, people were getting disconnected more often and it was incompatible with Windows Vista machines.

Pioneer Net uses built-in security that is already installed in any operating system, including Windows, Apple and Linux.

The VPN client was a third-party software that the DU community needed to install and connect to each time in order to use the Internet.

Instead of going through third-party software, Pioneer Net uses the laptop’s own operating system, which improves reliability, Lew said.

The new system also uses Adaptive Radio Technology (ART), which means all of the different wireless access points on campus are regulated with one main controller.

That “brain,” as Lew called it, changes in real time depending on the amount of users in a classroom and how much interference there is, making the network more reliable, faster and less likely to disconnect randomly.

Lew said that students who own a mobile device, such as an iPhone, can download a file from the Internet, put the phone in their pocket and go from one building to another without disconnecting.

Guests will also find it easier to connect to Pioneer Net, Lew said, because instead of installing new software, they can simply enter a password when they open their web browsers.

Instructions on how to connect to Pioneer Net can be found on UTS’s Web site, www.du.edu/uts/networks/wireless.html.

UTS is currently making the network more reliable and consistent.

“The past few days, people might have seen the network being up and down, but that’s part of installing a brand new solution on campus,” Lew said.

UTS has isolated the problem and it will be fixed within the next few days, Lew said last Friday.

Although the VPN client is still working, UTS plans to completely phase it out.

“We are keeping it for another year or so, but encouraging people to move over to the new network. The sooner they move over, the better,” Lew said.

Although Lew said there was a note on the VPN client informing the DU community about the switch, some students say they would have liked to be more informed.

Senior international business major Vanessa Gooding said she was frustrated that she wasn’t sent an e-mail about the change in wireless access.

“They didn’t send us anything,” Gooding said.

She did not go through the UTS Web site’s instructions and was trying to connect to Pioneer Net on her Dell computer. She realized her wireless network at her house on South Williams Street was not connecting properly afterwards.

“I’m going to the UTS help desk at the library to have them do it because I want them to do it right,” Gooding said.