Connecting your laptop / mobile device to the Wi-Fi network

The following networks are available in the Mathematical Institute (Andrew Wiles Building):

• eduroam is recommended for mobile phones and laptops that just need an internet connection. It is available to all Oxford staff & students, as well as members of many other participating universities. For setup instructions, see How to connect to eduroam.
   
• The Cloud is a public Wi-Fi network that can be used by anyone. After connecting, you will be asked to register or sign in with an existing account. The same account can be used in many other public places, such as pubs, restaurants, train stations, events spaces, etc.
   
• The MATHS wireless network is intended only for laptops - not for phones/tablets - where you need to use departmental services like printing or file sharing. You will need to authenticate using your Maths user account and password.
   
• OWL - Oxford Wireless LAN - may occasionally be useful for visitors to other departments in the university who have been issued OWL accounts, but such accounts are not generally issued by the Mathematical Institute.

To connect to eduroam or MATHS Wi-Fi networks, one typically needs to:

• Use WPA2 Enterprise as the connection type
• Use PEAP with MSCHAPv2 authentication
• Enter your username and password (university Remote Access account for eduroam; normal Maths account for MATHS)
• Accept any certificates

For The Cloud, open a web browser and follow the instructions provided.

Connecting to multiple Wi-Fi networks

If you configure your device to connect to more than one of these networks, this can result in your device occasionally dropping one network connection and reconnecting via another - especially on Apple Macbook devices. Symptoms of this include dropped video calls or screen freezes for short periods.

To avoid this, we recommend you disable the auto-join setting for all but one of the configured connections. For example, enable auto-join for eduroam and disable it for MATHS and The Cloud.

Reporting Wi-Fi problems

If you experience issues with the Wi-Fi, please report them to IT support. Please include as many details as possible, such as:

• Your location in the building, and whether you have the same issue in other locations or not
• Which network you are connected to, and whether you have tried any others
• The date/time you last had the problem, and how long it has been occurring
• Your device's MAC address (so we can check the connection logs)

Note that Wi-Fi speeds will vary around the building, with the fastest seen at about 300Mbps (dependent on particular device, network utilisation, access point location and features, and Wi-Fi network connected to).

MATHS network restrictions/policy

Personal devices using the MATHS Wi-Fi network are connected to a separate subnet (VLAN) from the departmental machines and are considered "untrusted". IP addresses are dynamically allocated using DHCP (fixed IP address are not available), and all connections are logged. It is the machine owner's responsibility to maintain the security of their machine by applying appropriate patches and running suitable anti-virus software, etc. See the IT policy for further details.