Students, faculty and staff living or working in the South 40, the Village, Simon Hall, the Danforth University Center or the Knight Center might have noticed their cell phone signals are much stronger this fall than when spring semester ended last May.
This summer, WUSTL’s Information Services and Technology (IS&T) and Facilities continued to worked with five of the St. Louis area’s most popular cellular carriers — AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, US Cellular and Verizon — to improve cell phone reception for the residential areas of the Danforth Campus and for targeted buildings such as the Danforth University Center, Knight Center and Simon Hall.
“Requests for stronger cellular signals from residential students as well as Student Union officers and Congress of the South 40 representatives in recent years — specifically in the residence halls — prompted the University to work with cellular carriers to enhance their signals near and on the Washington University campus,” said Jan Weller, assistant vice chancellor for Information Services & Technology.
Several cellular towers and antennas were installed on campus by carriers, and the University also constructed a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to address in-building cellular reception in Simon Hall, the Knight Center, the Danforth University Center and its underground garage. The DAS uses antennas placed throughout buildings to capture and relay cell phone signals through interior space.
The growth of mobile computing and the widespread use of smartphones require strong wireless coverage, Weller said. IS&T continues to look for ways to improve cellular reception throughout the Danforth Campus and other WUSTL campuses, partnering with cell phone carriers to create a “seamless” communications environment at WUSTL, Weller said.