Mary Jeffries
Senior News Writer The Internet connectivity problems experienced campuswide last Thursday are part of the switch to the new wireless network, which I.T. began to implement this summer. According to Chuck Wagers, director of Campus Dining and Conference Services, and Michael Hicks, director of Bookstore Operations, commercial locations across campus closed Thursday due to a loss of network connectivity campus-wide.
Those locations, including Mom’s Truckstop, Old Main Café, MacLeod’s (the C-Store) and Florence O. Wilson bookstore, had to close because the registers could not make offline sales. Mom’s, Old Main and MacLeod’s closed for around an hour and a half until network connectivity was restored. The bookstore was closed longer, from about 11:30 in the morning until 2:30 in the afternoon. Pop’s Sandwich Shop, Lowry and Kittredge were able to operate because they could process sales offline. Nancy Manley, who was working in MacLeod’s when the network went down, explained that students could still use their meal plans but could not make purchases at the store.
“We are entirely tied to the network,” said Kristine Jamieson, an associate at the Office of the Registrar. “Whenever the network goes down it really puts us at a standstill … We can’t register, we can’t drop, add, majors, minors, advisers, anything in the system at all … We couldn’t even print.”
The office still had plenty of manual work to accomplish, however, from filing to shredding papers. Scheduling the professional staff was impossible, according to Molly Snell-Larch ’15.
“It made me realize how twenty-five years ago none of this stuff that we so heavily rely on was even in play, but now for everyone it was like no one could get anything done,” said Snell-Larch.
The Information Technology Department (I.T.) has struggled to stay ahead of the curve, especially with a network that was installed 15 years ago. Ellen Falduto, chief information and planning officer in I.T., spoke about the College’s project to make the switch to a new network, a plan two years in the making.
In the old network, Falduto said, equipment was out of date and could not be supported by the vendor. On top of the expense to maintain such an old system, wireless coverage was spotty, connecting was slow and devices with newer wireless technology, like the iPad, were not supported by the old network’s proprietary features. Updating to a new network became a top priority. The design objectives included network availability “any time, any place,” the ability to use consumer rather than corporate devices (i.e. your own Macbook and not a school laptop), and most importantly that students can connect their wireless devices and printers to the network independent of I.T. Another main goal was instituting a plan to replace old equipment with upgrades every four or five years.
“I came from an institution where we would change our network every four years,” Falduto said, “and when I got here and found we had no sort of cycle replacement plan for either our servers or our network … I said, ‘Okay, wait, we need to start over.’” Although upgrading every few years may sound expensive, the current switch was made within I.T.’s budget and plans are being made to continue the upgrades without exceeding funding limitations.
The problems experienced Thursday were mainly a result of the old equipment still on the network, finishing the installation of the new equipment and the shortened time frame I.T. had to test out the network due to an earlier start of classes. Between when the department could access buildings on campus and when classes began, gauging the effects of the new system was an accelerated process.
Because of the removal of all the old equipment last Friday at 5 a.m., I.T. expects most of these issues to be resolved. They have also identified and begun working on a solution to the printer problems. According to Falduto, who has seen multiple system overhauls, this switchover went much better than most.
Once the network is fully implemented, problems are expected to diminish. The aim of this overhaul is to make students independent of constant I.T. guidance so that they can acquire the technological knowledge to succeed in today’s tech-savvy world.
Early problems accessing YouTube are not believed to be the fault of the new network. “We believe it is the connection we make … between the Internet provided by Ohio State and Google in Michigan. But we checked other video sites and it’s not our network,” said Falduto. The issue has since been remedied.