Cruising the Web at 65 MPH

UCSD and the Jacobs School made history this spring, launching the first regular bus service anywhere to feature high-speed mobile Internet access. The so-called CyberShuttle enables access at a peak speed of 2.4 Megabits per second—even while the bus is traveling 65 miles per hour down Interstate 5. With multiple passengers logging on, speeds are roughly equivalent to DSL or cable modem service at home, and many times faster than conventional “wired” access using 56K modems.

The commuter bus shuttles between the campus and the Sorrento Valley Train Station. Students and other passengers can access the highspeed network as long as their laptops or PDAs are equipped with a wireless card registered on the UCSD network. The CyberShuttle itself is equipped with Qualcomm’s third-generation wireless technology, seamlessly linking an 802.11b network inside the bus, to Qualcomm’s experimental network that covers most of the campus and neighboring Sorrento Valley.