Even as University Park officials contemplate cooperating with the borough to go wireless in the future, the campus will still be playing catch-up with Penn State Harrisburg.

Students at the Harrisburg campus have been able to access the Internet from many indoor and outdoor locations across the campus since the end of last semester, said Bob Brinkley, Information Technology director at Penn State Harrisburg.

"The students are very excited about this. It was designed for them and it's very popular," Brinkley said.

"We wish that the weather would get nicer so that students could use the wireless technology available outside," he said.

State College officials recently decided to commission a study to determine the feasibility of implementing wireless technology in State College, including University Park. If all goes well, the technology might be available as early as 2007.

Brinkley said he wasn't sure if University Park would be using the Harrisburg system as a model for its own potential wireless network, but that engineers based at University Park have visited the Harrisburg campus and have used the network.

"[University Park] engineers have been down here and have used and evaluated our system. It was received favorably by them," Brinkley said.

The Harrisburg service is free to students, and the money to fund the service came from the student information technology fee, Brinkley said. He added that the information technology fee did not increase for students.

Students can access the wireless network, which covers 90 percent of the campus, with a wireless card, said Dabis Camero, senior research engineer at Penn State Harrisburg.

"I find all of the students with laptops are taking advantage of the system," Camero said.

Some Penn State students at University Park said they are excited about the prospect of the campus one day becoming wireless.

"It will give students the ability to decide when and where to do their work," Charlotte Newell (sophomore-political science) said.

She added that she thought the community, in addition to the campus, would benefit from the implementation of similar technology.

"The community will benefit as well if the downtown follows suit -- it could bring more people downtown if they feel like they can relax in a coffee shop and do work simultaneously," Newell said.

Sarah Wood (sophomore-mechanical engineering) said she was also looking forward to the campus going wireless. However, she added she thinks some students might abuse the Internet access in class and use it for non-class-related work.

"I think it could be a good thing and a bad thing. Students will be able to take their computers to class and look at notes online, but on the other hand, they might use the Internet for other things and get distracted." Wood said.

Jimmy Wolf (sophomore-electrical engineering) said he thought it would be convenient to have wireless access available everywhere on campus.

"I think that it would be great if students didn't have to log on to distant computers to get vital information," he said. "Like details on quantum physics or how to correctly make a Sex on the Beach."