Winging about university IT

Why is that Universities have the most archaic and paranoid IT systems in the world? I’m here at the Australian National University having delivered a keynote to the ActKM annual conference (on ethics and narrative). The University House accommodation was built in the year I was born, and the wear and tear is equivalent. The wireless strength is good, but its set up so none of my pop servers can send or receive email and my .mac account can receive but not send. Its the same at Warwick University when I stay there (and countless others). In this day and age wireless access can be handled by airports, the nation (in the case of Singapore with free access in most of the island), hotels, coffee shops etc. but a University, which is all about knowledge, connectivity etc. etc. is stuck in an earlier age? The conference was great by the way, good people, good audience and I’ll blog the subject later.