IT Upgrading Wifi Access Points Across Berkeley Lab

Beginning last month, the IT Division has started upgrading more than 1,000 Wi-Fi access points across most Berkeley Lab buildings to deliver faster speeds, greater capacity, and stronger security. The upgrades will improve the wireless network to keep up with the Lab’s current demand and allow many more laptops, phones, sensors, and lab instruments to connect at the same time without slowing down.

The new access points will use Wi-Fi 6E, a major step up from the older Wi-Fi 5 equipment. Wi-Fi 6E opens a new section of radio spectrum in the 6 GHz range, which supports wider channels to reduce congestion. This change will expand a Berkeley Lab building’s total available wireless spectrum from 540 MHz to 1,620 MHz, tripling the amount of wifi spectrum available for devices to send and receive data. 

What you need to do: forget lbnl-vistor and use lbnl-open

To get ready for this change if you use the lbnl-visitor please start using lbnl-open wireless network instead as your password-free wifi option at the Lab.

Users of other wireless networks will not need to make any changes to take advantage of the increased capacities and speeds after the new access points are installed.  To learn more about all of the Lab wireless network options visit the IT wireless network service page. 

As new access points are installed one building at a time over the next two years the lbnl-visitor network performance will degrade as it will rely on the oldest and most congested range of spectrum; the newer lbnl-open wireless network performance will improve significantly as it takes advantage of the new equipment and expanded spectrum.  When the access point replacement project is complete in 2027 the old lbnl-visitor wireless network will be retired and removed from our Wi-Fi platform.

A key enhancement of the new lbnl-open network is that it uses the new Wi-Fi Enhanced Open standards to provide opportunistic wireless encryption. This means that for most modern devices your data will be encrypted as it is broadcast over the airwaves, providing an additional layer of security against eavesdropping or hijack attacks.For assistance with using the wireless networks at LBL please visit https://help.lbl.gov/ or email help@lbl.gov.