Campus tech officials are frustrated because their upgrades are not working properly.
Campus technology workers installed new equipment around campus during the summer. The equipment included about 90 new antennas, two controllers and new network switches, but the wireless keeps failing.
“I am not saying that these upgrades caused this,” said Dennis Rigdon, assistant director of campus technology services. “It could be these things, it could be something else entirely or it could be a combination. We are working diligently to get the problem solved so users will have a better experience with the wireless.”
Campus Technology Services has put together a team of engineers from around the country to try to identify and solve the problems, Rigdon said.
He also said the wireless keeps going down because periodically the network that supports it loses its ability to communicate with the antennas around campus. When this happens, the antennas will reboot and, if someone is connected to the wireless, then they will lose service on their device.
“We didn’t know there was a problem with the wireless until the beginning of the semester when we started getting work tickets,” Rigdon said. “When no one is here during the summer then we have no problems, but the moment that several thousand people hit the wireless with multiple devices at the same time then it takes a toll on the wireless.”
Rigdon said they are disappointed that this problem is occurring because of the time and money spent during the summer to help improve the wireless.
“So instead of improving, we are sort of back peddling,” Rigdon said.
He also said part of the problem could be students bringing their own home wireless routers to campus, which is against the computer usage policy.
“When this happens often times it can knock a whole building offline,” Rigdon said.
Students are beginning to get frustrated with the wireless going down.
“It seems like every time I try to do homework I can’t stay connected to the Wi-Fi,” said Monica Hiller, elementary education sophomore. “I understand that it is hard to control but I think we all pay enough money to get more bandwidth.”
Rigdon said they don’t have a time frame for when the issue might get fixed, but they will let the campus community know as soon as they do.
“We feel horrible that this is occurring,” Rigdon said. “It affects us just as well as it does everyone else and we are doing everything we can to get it right.”
Need more, lower power APs on different frequencies. There should 2/3 5ghz and 1/3 2.4ghz in this day and age. Lots more bandwidth and lots more channels on 5ghz. Using ubnt.com APs in the corners of buildings, pointing down hallways, for parallel paths using freq diversity will separate out the interference. The expensive, CISCO APs are just not worth the money overall. Sure, you can manage them, but for the cost, they provide no extra benefits. RF is RF, APs are APs. Use fixed configurations on a server that you can load/save into the ubnt.com radios, and you are golden.