Many members of the Eastern Nazarene College student body wonder why the school’s wi-fi is slow. The answer lies partially in the fact that the campus’s old infrastructure causes a roadblock.
The older concrete dorms present a challenge for improving wi-fi connectivity. ENC’s network administrator, Stephen McGuire, states, “The old infrastructure makes it nearly impossible or very difficult with the placement and cabling, when it comes to setting up access points.”
McGuire stresses that the speed of the wi-fi is heavily dependent on where a person is located on campus in relation to the 115 access points.
McGuire says, “The current number of access points that we have had previously increased by 15 last summer, and we plan to install another 10 before the fall semester….Our plan is to try adding more access points on campus to improve coverage.”
In addition to adding more access points, the ITS Department has increased the student bandwidth over three and half times from what it was previously.
Students received a notification in their student portal and email regarding the wi-fi updates over spring break. According to McGuire, there were several updates performed over the break, but mainly with the firewalls and software.
Another challenge to making upgrades to the school’s wi-fi possible is cost. Access points cost $350 a piece, and software is a part of the maintenance package ENC gets from their vendor.
Overall, because of the slow wi-fi students currently have, the ITS department has been consistently working to make improvements as they see fit.