How do I Connect to the Wireless Network?

Where can I access the wireless network?

In order to connect to UT's wireless network, you must be in range of the wireless signal. Most of the academic and administrative buildings, as well as many other public areas of campus are covered by wireless.

What do I need in order to access the wireless network?

Almost every notebook computer sold today has an internal wireless card capable of connecting to the UT wireless network. Many other devices are also wireless-capable. Whatever the device, there are two main steps you must perform to use UT's wireless network. 

Step 1 - Connect to the network

Open your wireless configuration tool.  For some laptops the wireless configuration tool will be the built in to your operating system (Windows or Mac OS) and for others it will be the client that came with your wireless card.  Other devices, such as PDAs, phones, and gaming devices will have some sort of configuration management interface - check your product's documentation for more information about configuring your wireless connection.

Within your wireless configuration tool there will be a way to view available wireless networks.  You should see a wireless network named "ut-open" in your list.  When you connect to this network, your software might warn you that the network you are connecting to is not encrypted.  This is expected since we do not use encryption on the open network and you should continue anyway.  If you are a guest and not affiliated with UT, you should choose to connect to ut-visitor.  Please note you will receive limited access on the visitor wireless network. 

Step 2 - Register your device

In order to connect to the Internet, you must register your device on UT's network after configuring your wireless connection. On any device with a web browser (such as a notebook) this part is easy - just open Internet Explorer and try to open any page - such as google.com. You will be automatically redirected to the registration page - http://support.utk.edu/. Log in and follow the instructions to register.  For detailed instructions about the registration process, see the Wireless Registration article.

For devices that do not have web browsers, such as some gaming systems, a manual registration is necessary. See the Gaming Devices page for more information on how to register these devices.