According to a recent survey, Penn ranks No. 66 on a national list of 100 colleges and universities that are deemed most "unwired."
The April survey was funded by the Intel Corp. and rated colleges' wireless Web technology using a variety of determinants.
Among the winners were Indiana University-Bloomington, Dartmouth College and Drexel University, which were ranked first, fifth and 22nd, respectively.
Bert Sperling, president of the Portsmouth, Ore.-based research company Sperling's BestPlaces, conducted the research.
When ranking schools, Sperling considered the number of students, computers and wireless-accessible zones called "hotspots," as well as the ratio of students to computers.
"We looked at the amount of wi-fi activity, and we measured the percentage of coverage that the different campuses had," Sperling said. The term "wi-fi," which stands for "wireless fidelity," refers to wireless Internet coverage.
Sperling is well known for his "Best Places" surveys, which compare and rate cities on a variety of criteria.
Reni Roberts, an IT project leader with Penn's Information and Systems Computing division, said that the survey failed to consider certain factors which might have earned Penn a higher slot.
"It seems that rather than counting the number of undergraduates and hotspots, the survey would be more valuable if researchers would consider the quality of a campus' wireless service," she said.
"How reliable and how secure is the service? And no mention is made of the ease of use of the service or in the amount of support available," Roberts added. She said that quality, security and ease of use are top goals of wireless PennNet.
Currently, wireless PennNet supports at least 3,750 users and has locations throughout College Green, the Penn Bookstore and several college houses.
In addition, more hotspots are slated for the upcoming year.
According to Sperling, colleges that embrace wireless technology represent "where the future is going and what it's going to be like on a worldwide basis."
"The big takeaway point is that there is such a huge growth in wi-fi that it is quickly becoming a standard on campuses everywhere," Sperling said.
"When campuses went wi-fi, people started taking their laptops everywhere, and it changed the nature of having a computer."
Besides ranking colleges, the survey also rated the top 100 unwired cities across the United States.
Philadelphia ranked 33rd, behind metropolitan San Francisco (1), Boston (17) and metropolitan New York (24).
