I am posting this in hopes to hear different ways colleges are handling BYOD's in dorms. I was part of an older dorm network discussion that was back in 2018, but things are changing fast. There are many devices that students can bring to the dorms, but not all devices are equal. Students have brought everything from wireless air fresheners to Smart TV's.
At the present time, we have two SSIDs in our dorms. One SSID is for non 802.1x devices such as smart tv's, game boxes, etc. and students have to register these devices through a splash page on Clearpass for mac authentication. We are seeing some devices are using randomized mac addresses or the devices are asking questions of whether they are in a dorm or home and looking for a pre-shared key.
Our other SSID is for 802.1x authentication, which is the same SSID used across campus.
Our end goal in the dorms is to give the students the best wireless user experience possible and make them feel more at home. " If it works at home, it should work in the dorm". "Easier said than done."
** The thought is: Why can't we place the dorms in a DMZ where they can register their devices, maybe for a pre-shared key or some other registration path and then almost everything that works "at home" should work in the dorm. Students can use the school VPN to connect to school resources or connect through the cloud for their resources like they do presently. The dorms would have a different SSID than the academic areas on campus. When the students leave the dorms, their devices would connect to the 802.1x SSID for classes, etc.
This is a round table forum, so please open your mind and share your ideas and methods that you use in the dorms.
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Scott Kirkland
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