Since returning to campus, students have reported issues with the campus Wi-Fi, such as connecting their devices to web pages and the connection speed, especially while outside.
Jeremy Kinnard, an architect for the university's network and voice infrastructure, said the Wi-Fi this year seems better than in previous years.
“A week prior to move-in date, we had 70 total tickets related to wireless (connections),” Kinnard said. “More than half of those tickets were related how to find the devices information to help get it registered on the on the guest network. Only three of them were related to performance-related problems.”
To ensure the best Wi-Fi connection for students, Kinnard and his team track Wi-Fi infrastructure installation dates to replace the access points and hardware when needed. The team aims to replace about 1,000 access points per year and update the technology.
Even with precautions, issues with the Wi-Fi will still occur. According to Kinnard, he cannot guarantee that the signal quality of multiple wireless devices, even in the same area, will be consistent.
“There are those types of variabilities, different facility infrastructure things,” Kinnard said. “There will always be some degree of less stability … because (wireless) communication is isolated inside of a protected physical media … it's really kind of device-dependent.”
Thomas Henry, a sophomore studying journalism, has noticed that the Wi-Fi has been unreliable this year. Henry said the Wi-Fi is, however, not worse than last year but only slightly better.
“I remember last year it would go down for a whole building sometimes,” Henry said. “I seem to remember more people complaining about it last year, but if it's better this year, I think it's only marginally because there’s still problems with it connecting.”
Henry noted common issues that occurred last year, such as the entire dorm building losing connection and the lack of reception on the first floor of Baker Center, which has not occurred this year; however, the small issues are still persisting.
“I was with my friend the other day, and we were trying to watch the Bears game,” Henry said. “We couldn't get it on the TVs, so we were trying to AirPlay it from my phone, and the Wi-Fi would not let us do it … just unreliability.”
Drew Heldman, a freshman studying mechanical engineering, has experienced inconsistencies with the Wi-Fi. Heldman said that the Wi-Fi has led to issues during class with attendance, tests and homework.
“We had to spend 30 minutes doing attendance because the Wi-Fi was so bad,” Heldman said. “I've had to wait a considerable amount of time in the dorms to get Wi-Fi to work for just homework.”
Over the upcoming year, Kinnard and his team plan to improve Wi-Fi's broader support, focus on back-end management and create more specific targeting and manipulation of Wi-Fi access points.
“A lot of those efforts are to stay on top of modern industry trends for wireless networking,” Kinnard said.
Don Pendergast, senior director for digital infrastructure and operations, highly encourages students to contact the Technology Help Center to report any connectivity issues.
“We try to be aware of the quality and the performance across campus,” Pendergast said. “Sometimes it's the device, sometimes it's the software.”
To report Wi-Fi issues, email ServiceDesk@ohio.edu, call 740-593-1222 or submit a tech ticket on the Ohio University website.
