Student Housing Business

NOV-DEC 2015

Student Housing Business is the voice of the student housing industry.

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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2015 47 CONNECTIVITY network risks," says Baloga. "As a part of the monitoring process, Airwave collects statistics from network elements throughout the property's deployed system. Some of the most critical of these statistics will create an automatic alarm when outside of normal parameters." Baloga says a crucial element to resolving an Internet outage is keeping your residents and prop- erty personnel apprised of the issue and the steps being taken to rec- tify it. "Imagine coming home to your apartment after a long day flled with organic chemistry labs, calculus tests, engineering study groups, and a part-time job, only to fnd that you can't complete online coursework because there is an Internet issue at your property," he says. "Now imagine your Inter- net service provider was innovative enough to send a push notifcation to your smartphone informing you of the issue so that you can choose to stay on campus until you receive a follow-up message that service is restored." Another critical element of ensur- ing high quality Internet access in the student housing market, Baloga says, is the effective and timely detection and management of viruses and other malicious traf- fc. "When effective anti-virus tech- niques are not employed, a single virus has the ability to deny service to a multitude of users, sometimes affecting an entire facility." Bandwidth Barrage As technology, social media and infrastructure progresses, commu- nities will be on the hook to provide faster, more robust wireless service to their residents. New devices that monopolize bandwidth are being introduced every day and develop- ers and operators must be prepared to accommodate what residents need. "Students will continue to be early adopters of new technologies and devices," Schweizer says. "Stu- dents and universities are already incorporating blogging, YouTube, Twitter and other social media plat- forms into the classroom. This will only increase the current demand for reliable, mobile and fast Internet connections as students and faculty desire to be constantly connected. Plus, they continue to consume more over-the-top content with nearly 71 percent of 18- to 29-year- olds currently streaming TV pro- gramming, according to a recent Statista Report. This will put a fur- ther strain on networks and will require an even more robust fber optic network." According to Brian Reid of The Preiss Co., a survey of 100 of its properties' residents found that 58 percent preferred Internet-related video content to traditional cable TV service. "Devices such as the Xbox One, Playstation 4, Roku, Apple TV, smartphones and tablets are increasingly popular options for video content consumption," he says. Sanders says emerging technolo- gies that soon must be accounted for when building communities include mobile and wearable devic- es (such as smartwatches and activ- ity trackers), wireless calling via smartphone, streaming and over- the-top video (content providers/ aggregators searching for the right TV-over-Internet solution), the pro- liferation of video chat and more. "Improving latency and not just recommending increased band- width will be an important hurdle for Internet providers to jump," Whitley points out. "This will also be the case as more classes become available online and video con- ferencing capabilities becomes a required tool for college students." Chip Edwards, vice president of research and development for Air- wave, says the "Internet of Things" cannot be discounted, the intercon- nection of electronic devices and controllers to manage our homes, appliances and electronic systems. This can include heating and cool- ing systems, surveillance and secu- rity systems, and other integrated systems. "As properties move toward employing these items at sites, the systems can consume vast amounts of Internet address space and can load down the servers that provide address assignment," he says. Predicting how and when new devices and new technologies will be introduced, and how to pro- tect them, is a guessing game, but Anderson points out that robust, reliable Internet is fast becoming a basic necessity: "The idea of peak usage hours relative to user speeds is outdated," he says. "Providers need fast and effcient connectivity at all hours because our user is con- nected at all hours." 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