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School of Physics and Astronomy – computing
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WiFi in the Kelvin Building

There are three wireless networks in the building:

  1. Eduroam
  2. GUPHYSICS, and
  3. KELVIN.

You should use them strictly in that order of preference. Don't use ‘flexaccess’.

Eduroam is the now-preferred wireless network, supported by Central IT. The only reason not to use Eduroam is if you're in a particular corner of the building – behind an iron wall, for example! – which isn't currently served well by the existing Access Points (APs). As of mid-2022, the Eduroam provision in the building is due to be improved as part of the Network Infrastructure Investment Programme (NIIP) which is currently expected to start appearing in schools from 2023. We do not expect significant investment in Eduroam APs before then.

GUPHYSICS is the ‘legacy’ WiFi network, supported by P&A. It's now ageing, and we don't plan to upgrade it, since it will be replaced by Eduroam as the NIIP is rolled out (we believe it was the first building-wide WiFi network on campus, many moons ago). You log on to this using your ‘guphysics’ username and password. The network hardware attached to these is an order of magnitude slower than Eduroam, and it can cope with fewer simultaneous users.

It's also possible to authenticate to this network via the School's Active Directory database; contact P&A IT in this case. This is probably the neatest solution if you're not in convenient range of an Eduroam AP.

KELVIN is the ‘visitors and undergrads’ network, which people can gain access to using per-month passwords. It has more ports blocked than GUPHYSICS, and is rate-limited. You shouldn't use this unless the other two are unavailable for some reason (it's logically distinct from GUPHYSICS, but uses the same hardware, so is electromagnetically identical).

There are some network ports which are open on GUPHYSICS but blocked on Eduroam. The fix here is to let P&A IT support know about problems here (for example with printing), and we can negotiate with Central IT for appropriate Eduroam configurations.

A final point: the wired network will generally be faster and more reliable than wireless. To connect your laptop to this, let P&A IT support know your Ethernet MAC address, and we can enable it.