Long waiting periods to get connected to the campus Internet and frequent disconnects have left Grand Valley State University students frustrated and confused with a new system that was supposed to make life easier.

Junior Bridgette McGuire, an resident assistant in South C apartments on campus, is responsible for 30 students on her floor, including several freshmen. About half of those students have come to her in the last few weeks reporting problems connecting, she said.

“It was especially bad right after move-in,” McGuire said. “We had to spend a lot of our move-in process helping the freshmen learn how to sign on.”

The number of IP addresses being used up on campus by handheld devices like iPhones, Androids and tablets was initially believed to be part of the problem, but the issue is larger than just too many students trying to connect at the same time. GVSU has 850 access points on campus, with 350 better-quality access points in reserve, designed to handle the higher capacity of students trying to log on.

Bill Fisher, associate director of technical services for GVSU’s Computing and Technology Support, said CTS was not aware of the magnitude of the problem until last week.

“We didn’t understand the scope of the problem until last Tuesday [Sept. 13],” he said. “We ran trials on our test machines over the summer and had IT interns provide feedback, which came back positive. Once school started, we would see thousands of people on wireless and thought that everything was fine, but then last week we started getting a lot of feedback saying that it was taking a long time to connect. Since then we’ve been working like crazy because we want this fixed so bad. This is like our grade, and so far, we’ve really been struggling, so we’re definitely doing everything we can to get the problems fixed.”

Fisher and his staff have already implemented some changes, with results reporting immediate positive feedback. The firewall code, among other changes, was adjusted on Thursday while Fisher tinkered with the way the controllers registered addresses on Friday night.

During the weekend, he said he was intent on running several tests to try to fix the disconnect problem.

Junior Zak Waugh, a resident assistant in South D apartments, has urged the 63 students who live on his floor to take advantage of the concerted effort CTS is making to help students connect to the Internet should the problems persist.

“I try to find some information online on the IT website and there is information based on wireless access,” Waugh said. “I’ve printed off a couple pieces of paper and referred my residents to that, or I tell them to personally contact IT.”

CTS has set up an email address, [email protected], that students can write to get help connecting after explaining what happened, the problems they have been having, the date and time of the issue and their GVSU email address. They have also set up a poll on Blackboard for students to report problems and provide students with answers through the help desk at 616-331-2101.

Fisher said students reporting the problems will help CTS resolve them sooner by checking student logs in order to access individual problems.

“What we really are trying to do is encourage people to report the problem. If we can find some people who are having the disconnect problem, we can check the logs and go out and try to help them,” he said. “Believe me, we want this fixed and we’ll do anything it takes to get these widespread problems resolved.”

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