Wi-Fi Worries Run across Campus
By: Abby May
LC students and faculty are concerned about the level of internet service following multiple internet blackouts.
Junior Nicole Chandler said, “Usually the wifi is well connected to my devices, but after certain times in the day it is incredibly hard to connect in Schewel Hall.”
Chandler said, “One time after finishing a paper I tried to turn it in and the Wi-Fi was completely down. I had to wait the next day to turn it in.”
Students have taken to Twitter to voice their concern about the internet connection.
The internet outages have even affected Lynchburg College sports.
Communications Professor Dr. Jimmy Roux said, “We need to step it up because Wi-Fi is far too important and we are dependent on it to get everything that we do done.”
“As a professor who gives students assignments that need Wi-Fi I have to have leniency when giving work because the assignment require an internet connection and if they can’t do it then I also can’t give feedback” said Roux.
Director of Information, Technology and Resources Jackie Almond said, “The reason the internet connection went out so many times last semester was because the pipe that delivers the connection was over 13 years old. Too many people would get on the internet and the Wi-Fi itself was on a smaller secondary switch that was not a part of the main internet feed.” This problem was also the reason for slow internet browsing.
Another issue was that, “people did not take the time to properly authenticate” said Almond. IT says that many people attempt to connect to the internet too quickly and forget to make sure they have put in their password to correctly and safely allow access to the Wi-Fi connection that the school provides.
This semester the IT department has replaced the network switch. The newer internet pipe should allow a faster connection.
In order to continue improvements regarding the internet Almond said, “we need another redundant pipe from another vendor.” LC currently uses Level3, now CenturyLink as the provider. However, Almond said IT has been in contact with other vendors like Lumos and Comcast to get pricing for another possible connection.
IT plans to have a solution for an even better internet connection in place for next year.