Students having trouble with Wi-Fi

This archived article was written by: Shadayah Jones

There is no question that the students on campus are frustrated by the internet available on campus, specifically in the USU-Eastern residential halls. Students on campus are receiving free Wi-Fi while on campus, but there seems to be some problems reported from the Residential Advisors on campus.
Many of the students living on campus are complaining to their Resident Advisors that the Wi-Fi is extremely slow in all the halls. Some have even reported that the Wi-Fi will go down from time to time and they are not able to connect. This is an issue because some of the students need to send emails and submit assignments on Canvas and are unable to do so within the halls.
Residents of Sessions’ Hall have not reported many problems regarding the Wi-Fi, but Tucker and Burtenshaw residents reported that it is very slow. Aaron Jones’ residents reported that it is slow and that they will lose the connection daily.
In an e-mail, Eric Mantz, associate vice chancellor for business services & information technology, has had only one complaint about the Wi-Fi in the residential halls through e-mail. There have been several R.A.’s who complained to the IT department directly and they were told that they were aware of the issues and were working on it. Unfortunately, there has been no improvement with the Wi-Fi according to students living in the halls.
Many of the R.A.’s had to come to school early to prepare for the upcoming year. Each R.A. had to do room condition reports for all of the rooms they were over. These room condition reports need to be submitted online. R.A.’s over Burtenshaw and Tucker complained that the Wi-Fi was slow and the R.A.’s in Aaron Jones had no connection what so ever. Because of this several R.A.’s needed to use the data on their phones to complete the forms online.
Mantz said he recently asked some students who live in Aaron Jones how the Wi-Fi was. He said they reported back that it was fine except when streaming video. He later directed his staff that the Wireless Arrays to be reconfigured to see if the streaming video could become better in Aaron Jones.
“All systems have been operationally checked, but it is hard to tell from the backside the performance we are getting with the increased load that is put on the system. Streaming Video such as Netflix, YouTube, Apple TV, VUDU, etc., take the biggest toll on Wi-Fi. It has become increasingly difficult to keep up with the demand and much of it appears to be recreational in nature and this competes with our academic traffic,” states Mantz.
When asked about the problems students are experiencing, Alex Herzog, associate vice chancellor, explains, “last spring we made several upgrades to wireless equipment but if the main line is not giving us enough flow, this may be a bigger problem.”
A student on campus states, “having slow Internet is like having a car that is stuck in first gear.”
Unfortunately, the IT department has not been receiving any complaints about the Wi-Fi in the resident halls, so they are not aware of the problems that some of the students are experiencing.
In the past, students had no way to contact the IT department when having problems with the Wi-Fi. Recently, IT has developed form that can be filled out online that will hopefully help students when problems arise. Students can go to usueastern.edu/it/bluezone.htm and look for the Wireless Trouble Report link at the bottom of the page.
With this now available, students are able to report problems and hopefully they will be able to be addressed as quickly as possible.