The race is on for fall registration with more than 30,000 students on the mark to go. Since registration began at the same time for most students, Wolverine Wi-Fi is putting its game face on to accommodate the high demand for fast, reliable internet access.
Students may have noticed this semester was the first semester to host the new Wolverine Wi-Fi. Bradford Systems is the name of the new program that replaced Cisco Clean Access, which is what the UVU Open and Secure networks were running from. Characteristics of the new program are quick, easy access to the Internet with some dropped signals and slowness.
Accessing the Internet from a tablet, phone or laptop is easier now with the new program; before, students had to take their mobile devices to IT to have them set to the UVU Open or Secure networks.
“I really like the fact that I can just go in there and not have to worry about putting in my UVU ID every single time,” said Devan Davidson, a junior.
Not having to use Cisco does make it faster to sign onto the Internet. However, some students and teachers have noticed problems with a slow connection, or the Internet dropping altogether.
“Sometimes it’s really slow and some teachers have problems with it,” said Daiana Sanchez, digital media student.
“I think it’s really serious when it affects a student’s academic work,” said Professor Robert Trim of the Digital Media Technology Department. “We are so mobile-oriented on campus, whether it be phones or tablets or laptops, and we’re tremendously mobile-oriented in the digital media area that it’s now encroaching on their ability to function as a student.”
The IT department knows what the issues are. The IT helpdesk fields complaints and tries to fix what problems they can, although they cannot resolve all problems.
“There are so many people using Wi-Fi now; there are more Wi-Fi users on campus then there are using actual desktops or actually connecting in physically,” said Nate Hancock, a Systems Specialist of Network Infrastructure for UVU. “It’s becoming widely used.”
Hancock said having so many mobile devices connected at one time could be the cause for some slowness or even dropped connections. An access point is a box that our devices get Wolverine Wi-Fi from, and one access point can account for so many devices. If there are too many devices using the Wi-Fi, it slows down.
“If they have a lot of devices that are always on Wi-Fi, turn your Wi-Fi off if you’re not using it, and only turn it on if you are going to be using it,” Hancock said.
Other than making the student body aware of the issue, IT is also working on fixing the problem in other ways.
“I am involved personally on a project where we are increasing the bandwidth on our access points,” Hancock said. “In fact I am installing new hardware that will perform ten times faster than the current hardware.”
By Ashley Townsend
