Over the past few months, many Carleton students have experienced problems connecting to on-campus wireless internet compared to previous years, according to Mark Brown, the service desk supervisor for Computing and Communication Services (CCS).
Since 2007, the number of wireless access points—the devices that emit Wi-Fi signals—across campus has gone from 75 to 1,600 points, said Eddie Villarta, CCS network services manager. This is supposed to cover 100 per cent of indoor buildings on campus, he said.
Mary Kathryn Roberts, CCS communications advisor, said in an email that over 9,000 users connect to the Wi-Fi every day.
This year, CCS has seen a significant increase in the number of students having internet connectivity problems in comparison to previous years, said Brown over email.
“Users who had used Wi-Fi last year without issue may encounter problems due to the need for their device to install the new security certificate,” Brown said. “The certificate should automatically update but a lot of times it does not.”
The CCS’s recommended solution for frustrated students is to remove or forget the network on your device so you can reconnect with the new certificate.
Students like Rebecca Kiriakopoulos have noticed a difference in Wi-Fi connectivity this year.
“The Wi-Fi is definitely slower this year,” Kiriakopoulos, a third-year journalism student, said. “When it works it’s great, but when it’s being slow or difficult to connect to, then it takes 15 to 20 minutes just to connect my laptop or phone.”
Right now, the best Wi-Fi on campus can be accessed in buildings with less foot traffic and overall users, like the River Building, Roberts said. She added that residences or buildings with overly-thick concrete walls have the worst Wi-Fi signal on campus.
Glengarry Residence, which is one of the oldest buildings on campus, only had Wi-Fi access installed in August of this year—leaving students to rely on ethernet cables for the past 12 years, Villarta said.
“There’s still some buildings where the access points are in the hallway,” Villarta said. “This makes it more difficult for students to connect as well.”
For the past two years, CCS has been doing what is called “high intensity deployment,” an initiative to bring better internet access to places like residence buildings where connections can be lacking, he said.
Regardless of the growing number of access points, some students said they are still having problems within academic buildings when trying to connect to the web.
“I always have a hard time connecting my tablet to the Wi-Fi in Tory [Building] when I have class,” said Jessica Cottingham, a third-year criminology student. “There should be more hotspots to handle the demand.”
Chris Murray, the senior network engineer for CCS, said in a email that improvements to campus Wi-Fi are being made every year.
“In 2014 we installed additional access points on campus to have full coverage in all academic buildings,” Murray said. “Then, this year, we replaced older access points in Academic Buildings to new ones which support 802.11ac. This provides fast speed and is less prone to interference.”
Brown said the CSS tries to maintain constant communication with students regarding known Wi-Fi issues.
The CCS desk provides also students with face to face, email, and phone support to try and solve all Wi-Fi-related issues.
