Student Association President Nicole Capp announced GW’s plans for technological improvements around the Foggy Bottom campus, including more wireless access points and enhanced cell phone service.

Capp, a junior, met with Ron Bonig, vice president and CIO of Information Systems and Services, this month to voice students’ frustrations with wireless Internet access and cell phone reception on campus.

“Bonig was very open to the wide variety of ideas I brought to the table, and many updates and changes ISS will make in the upcoming months are a direct result of these ideas and student concerns,” Capp said.

Updates to current technology will include 30 new wireless access points across campus as well as improvements to current wireless access points at the Elliott School and Marvin Center within in the next six months, according to an SA news release.

“I am especially excited for the additional GWireless access points being added around campus,” Capp said. “The new hot spots will increase the areas on campus suitable for studying or holding meetings.”

Capp also lobbied for improved cell phone service on campus. She said the University conducted an engineering survey to study wireless reception on campus.

“As a result of its findings, negotiations began to place an additional cell tower above various halls,” she said.

ISS is also working on a project that will merge the MyGW and GWired web portals into a single interface.

“We are working on a project called the ‘Unified Web Presence’ for GW that will streamline the existing GW Web properties into a more useful resource for students,” Bonig said.

Student leaders will also receive an increased e-mail quota as a result of Capp’s meetings with ISS.

“(Nicole and I) discussed the possibility of having the student leaders for all chartered student organizations to have an increased quota if it helps to run their chartered student organization,” Bonig said.

ISS is looking into changing the e-mail system from Colonial Mail to Google or Microsoft, Capp said.

“Technology plays a larger role in students’ lives today,” Capp said. “The students deserve upgrades in many areas including cell phone coverage, wireless capability and e-mail quotas. I brought these issues to the attention of the university and the results are here.”