If you will be living in University halls and houses you can use ResNet to connect to the Internet from your study bedroom. ResNet provides a high speed connection to the Internet, faster than you are used to at home.  Different packages are available, and you can pay for your ResNet connection before you get to Bristol (cost from £68 for three terms). Everything is available in your residence for you to connect the day you arrive. For more info see www.resnet.bristol.ac.uk/newstudents

We were able to connect these staff houses as they are adjacent to other buildings which already have ResNet, and we could extend the network to them at a reasonable cost. Unfortunately most small university-owned staff houses are more isolated, and connecting those is prohibitively expensive.

ResNet is of course already available in all student residences in the Accommodation Prospectus, and is available to new full-time undergraduate, Study Abroad and International Foundation programme students who meet the terms of the Accommodation Guarantee.

If in any doubt as to whether ResNet is available in your residence, please see where can I get ResNet?

Flats in the east wing have been unable to access the internet since about 7pm on Friday 23rd July, and the north wing has been down since about 3am Monday 26th July.  We're also receiving reports of problems in the West wing, although as yet these are unconfirmed.

We're investigating it carefully, and will update this post when we've got more information.

Update: 2010-07-26 09:40 East wing has come back up

Update: 2010-07-26 10:00 North wing is down because of power problems, hopefully it will come back up when power is restored.  The fault with East wing was due to a faulty fiber connection so should be stable now.

Update: 2010-07-27 08:30 North wing is still down.  Deans Court contractors are sourcing a replacement fuse which is the cause of the problem.  They expect this to be fixed today.

Update: 2010-07-27 11:20 Deans Court contractors appear to have fixed the power problem.  ResNet for North wing is back up.  All of Deans Court is now working.

Over the summer vacation we'll be installing wireless coverage for all study bedrooms at Badock, Durdham, Goldney, The Hawthorns, and University Hall. This is in addition to the flood wireless coverage we already have at Northwell House, 115 Queens Road, Richmond Terrace & Winkworth House. It means by this autumn 38% of university study bedrooms will have wireless coverage.

In the five new residences we're also installing the latest 802.11n wireless access points. This means that if your computer supports it you'll have even faster wireless access.

See the list of residences with ResNet to check if your hall has ResNet, wired or wireless. We are mainly putting wireless in the self catering residences first, so you can get access in kitchens and lounges as well as bedrooms. We are also doing those we can do relatively cheaply, which depends on the geography and building materials of the hall. Some of the older halls with big thick stone walls will be tricky, so we'll do those towards the end.

If we aren't covering your hall yet - sorry about that. You can set up your own wireless router in your room, provided you secure it carefully so no one else can use it. You can also use the free wireless hotspots in public areas of the halls, such as bars, JCRs and libraries.

It's going to take another three years or so to complete the wireless rollout, as all this wireless kit gets very expensive. But our ambition is for Bristol to be the first big UK university to provide wireless in bedrooms across all its halls, just as we were the first UK uni to provide a wired service back in 1998. We think we're some way ahead of other unis already!

Have your say on a new email service for Bristol students

The university is looking to create a new email for life service for students and alumni. This would be provided under contract with the university by either Google or Microsoft. We'd like to know what you think about this. Please see http://www.bristolresnet.net/2010/06/16/new-email-service/ for more info and to comment.

Leaving halls? Get broadband in private accommodation

If you're moving into private accommodation next year you'll want to sort out an Internet connection. Unfortunately you can't get ResNet, but we have a guide to help you choose a broadband provider - see http://www.bristol.ac.uk/is/computing/advice/homeusers/broadband/

Staying for the summer? Watch the World Cup on ResNet with Freewire TV

With Freewire you can watch 25 channels of live TV including BBC1 and ITV1 on your computer on ResNet. Freewire doesn't count towards your ResNet usage allowance. See
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/is/computing/advice/homeusers/resnet/using/freewire/ to get started.

Regards,

the ResNet team

• much larger mailboxes - eg 7GB or more
• a friendlier and more modern webmail to replace Squirrelmail
• you could keep the same email address after graduation, useful when applying for jobs

The email address would include your name (which you could choose), your year of entry, and 'bristoluniversity', though it wouldn't be @bristol.ac.uk. For example Edward Smith who started in 2009 might be Ted.Smith.2009 <at> bristoluniversity.org.uk We haven't decided on the domain after the @ yet, there are a few possibilities.

Separately you'd be able to choose at which address you want to receive official emails from the university. It could be at this new address or any other address you already have. Whichever is convenient to you, as it is important that you read these regularly.

There are two big firms offering this service to universities - Google and Microsoft. Both offer it free of charge, as they are keen to get students using their products. Quite a few unis already do student email this way, including UWE, Warwick and UCL. Emails aren't stored onsite at the university, they are stored in a data centre run by the supplier. On the web you sign in through the portal, but then webmail functions like Google Mail or Outlook Web Access. You can also access email on your mobile phone.

We've got lots more info and FAQs (available to logged-on Bristol students & staff only).

We are at quite an early stage in this and we'd like to know what you think. Do you like the idea? Do you have any problems with it? What would you like to see in the service and how should it work?

Now is a great time to get in touch, so the plans can change according to feedback. You can comments on this blog, on the wiki, or email Nick.Skelton <at> bristol.ac.uk. Thoughts are welcome from anyone with an interest - current students, prospective students, alumni.

Thanks for your help!

If nothing has changed then why have we done this?

The answer to this is greater flexibility in how we separate ResNet (a network of personally owned machines) from the rest of the University's managed network.  Our intention is to give ResNet attached devices full access to the University's educational resources but limit access to unnecessary things such as faculty desktops; something that has previously been impossible to do.

In the unlikely event that something which previously worked, now does not, then please contact the Help Desk via the usual channels.

This is one in a series of newsletters sent occasionally to ResNet subscribers. Please see the bottom of this message to unsubscribe if you wish. You can also read this newsletter on our blog at www.bristolresnet.net

Jobs With ResNet from September 2010

Each year a large number of students join the team to help run ResNet and the Student Laptop Clinic. We are now recruiting for technical positions for the 2010/11 academic year.

We've been out to site, and it looks as though there's a problem with the uplink on the switch.  We're pulling together the spare parts required to narrow down the issue further, and will update this post when we've got more information.

Update Weds, 12:41
First trip back with the spare parts makes us think it's not the uplink, so it's probably the switch afterall.  Time to head back out there with a spare switch.

Update Weds, 16:22
OK, this is not an easy one.  We've tried swapping out the switch for a new one, we've tried new patch leads, we've tried a different port on the upstream switch, we've tried new fiber interfaces on both ends, we've tested the fiber run and yet we still can't find the fault.

It's very unlikely at this point that we'll be able to restore service before close of business today (Wednesday), however we will get right back on it first thing tomorrow morning.

Update Thurs 9:40am
We've traced the fault to the upstream swtich (which seems to have about 8 dead ports), we happened to have a spare one so we've replaced it.  Service has now been restored to Woodland Court.

We're really sorry about the inconvenience this has caused!

There are two distinct issues, which have combined to cause a rather complicated and confusing result, so much so that I'm not really sure how best to describe the situation!

The main symptoms people have been seeing are:

• The wireless connectivity became unstable (we think on Monday, but possibly over the weekend), meaning that peoples wireless connections were unreliable.
• The wireless bandwidth accounting encountered a problem and started counting peoples traffic multiple times, leading to people being cut off for going over their quota - without them actually doing so.

We've made some changes to the wireless network which we think will improve the stability again, hopefully returning us to normal service stability, and we're busy fixing the bandwidth accounting.

We are picking our way through those who are affected by the accounting issue, restoring their bandwidth quotas and putting things back to normal.  Until we've completed this work, Wireless ResNet data isn't being updated through My ResNet or the RSS feed/bandwidth gadgets We will be emailing those affected with more details in due course.

We're really sorry for the inconvenience, especially during the exam season!