Avery Mariotti

Florida Southern College was challenged with Wifi problems on the first week of school. The problem with the Wifi is a recurring problem at FSC’s campus. Students travel off campus for faster wifi when it’s time to sign up for classes and in order to do homework.  

Before the break, Community Living sent out an email to all students living in the dorms informing them about the future installment of wireless routers into each individual dorm room on campus to help with the wireless problems that occurred last semester when the WiFi would shut down randomly on campus. 

The change to the routers in every room was a problem that I don’t think anyone was prepared for on this campus. The problem of having so many computers and phones thrown onto a network that no one had really tested over the break definitely impacted this crash.  

The individual rotors were tested the fall 2019 semester in the Dell and Wesley residence halls. 

Mike Crawford, the Dean of Students mentioned that the crash with the new routers on campus was caused by unauthorized traffic. This crash only impacted internet access on campus. Students living off campus or in the apartments were not impacted by the crash.

“An unauthorized wireless router was plugged in on campus,” Crawford said.  

This just shows that the school was not prepared for the wireless problems that were bought after setting up the new routers on campus. 

“When this was discovered our network team and our outside technology consultant implemented protocols to help reduce issues caused by unauthorized devices,” Crawford said. “However, it was discovered during the implementation of these protocols, that some of our older network equipment (a few networks switches) were unable to support the protocol, so this equipment had to be quickly replaced or bypassed.”  

Even the mail room on campus was affected by the WiFi. Many students couldn’t pick up packages even after getting notifications because they were so backed up trying to log all the packages they could before closing. 

Some students stood outside the mail room waiting to finally be able to pick up packages. Many students are frustrated because the lack of connectivity has made it hard to do research and class work. Students also couldn’t wireless print or log on to engage.  

Teachers have been struggling with the lack of WiFi because they can’t put things on portal or respond to emails. 

Since WiFi connection has been a recurring problem every year, the monitoring of the Wifi at FSC needs a major reboot. 

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