The Wi-Fi system relies on about 350 Cisco Systems Inc. access points, including 180 added over the summer in residence halls, Foggi said. He estimated the entire network has cost about $500,000.

Charles Kolodgy, a threat management analyst at market research company IDC, said DePaul's SSL VPN rollout seems to be typical of what has been done with Wi-Fi on other college campuses. The biggest advantage of using an SSL VPN is that it allows control of access to be centralized so that every wireless access point doesn't have to control access, Kolodgy said.

Kolodgy said he has done an informal test of the Aventail technology and found it easy to set up and use. He called Aventail "one of the pioneers" in SSL VPN technology, putting it in the top four vendors, with Juniper leading the market. Nortel Networks Corp. and F5 round out the top four. Cisco, Citrix Systems Inc., Nokia Corp. and Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. are also among the larger players, although some vendors include SSL VPN technology inside of IPSec VPN technology, he said.