There is no doubt that it would be virtually impossible to effectively function in a university setting without the use of Wi-Fi. Everything is online — course content, contact information, discussion groups, research materials, and so on.

Like many other universities, UW uses eduroam (short for education roaming) network services for campus Wi-Fi. It is a roaming service specifically made for research and education, allowing for students and faculty at different institutions to access the internet at any participating campuses.

Undoubtedly, eduroam serves an important purpose in the pervasively online dependent age we live in. On the other hand, the online dependent age for university students means that it’s quickly noticeable when something is not working correctly. Whether you’re reviewing a lecture on campus, reading an online textbook, joining a meeting, or taking an online class, it’s safe to say that study plans can quickly come to a halt when there are network issues.

This was the case during the week of Friday, Sept. 13, 2024 (notice the unlucky date), where there seemed to be campus-wide issues with eduroam.

At the beginning of Professor Jennifer Clary-Lemon’s visual rhetoric class, her students were scheduled to take a quick three-question reading quiz. But when suddenly faced with Wi-Fi issues, what can be done? While some connected to the hotspot on their phones, others lined up to show the professor that their Wi-Fi still wasn’t working and therefore they could not complete the 10-minute quiz. Clary-Lemon iterates, “Students pay for the Wi-Fi through tuition… [T]echnology is a prerequisite for learning, so there’s frustration. Everyone counts on the technology to work.”

While it may not seem like too big of a deal at first, as a professor, Clary-Lemon outlines legitimate concerns, particularly concerns of equity. While some students have the advantage of accessing the network or their own personal hotspot, others may not, and that comes to the point of some students receiving their education and others not. She reinstates that of course, it’s adaptable, but it comes with on-the-spot decision making and difficulty for the professor.

From a student perspective, some may not have found connectivity issues to be a problem at all. For others, it may be a larger inconvenience. Sam Jafarzadehpour, a fourth year ARBUS student, has faced continuous difficulties with the Wi-Fi: “I often encounter significant challenges with the eduroam network — I experience issues ranging from my password not working, to the network being down entirely. This frustration often forces me to rely on the guest Wi-Fi or my personal data.”

At the Dana Porter Library, located in the centre of campus, hundreds of students are circling in and out every day. Hawk Scherbinsky, who works with the library’s circulation services, often attends the desk where students go when they have network issues. “Students come up saying they can’t connect, or they were booted off. Sometimes they want to know how to connect for the first time. But mostly, it’s about the Wi-Fi not working,” Scherbinsky said. So, when students come up to the desk, he sends them over to the IT service desk.

Jeanie Zhang, a student working at the IT service desk this work term, helps resolve the network issues that students in the library may face. She collects the student information for the network team and helps troubleshoot devices. However, she says the network issues may be attributed to too many students in the library connecting to the network. When this happens, the Wi-Fi inevitably becomes slow. She mentioned that she noticed a larger number of students with Wi-Fi problems around Sept. 13. 

Of course, it would be naive to believe that there isn’t a diligent team consistently working on the betterment of our campus network to satisfy UW’s dedicated and hardworking screenagers. UW’s Information Systems and Technology (IST) is the team that helps provide effective information systems, services, and technology that support all of the university’s research, educational, and administrative needs.

Similar to what Zhang said, the IST site provides an analogy for Wi-Fi to help users better understand. Consider being at a table with one professor and 10 other students. If everyone needed to ask a question, there might be an overlap of voices and you may have to stop and wait for silence to speak again. The idea is that the same thing is happening with your device and the wireless access point. When there are so many people nearby using the Wi-Fi, people are essentially taking turns. This analogy provides insight or reasoning as to why there are seemingly random occurrences of network issues. When it’s put this way, it does feel a little more intense to expect 100 per cent performance from eduroam all the time.

When asked about potential issues with the Wi-Fi on campus, Natasha Jennings, the communications officer for IST provided an email statement, “Each of our department’s teams work diligently to support the central IT services provided to campus. While all services have scheduled maintenance and support windows, there are unfortunately times when a service is unexpectedly degraded or interrupted. When such a situation occurs, our teams work to investigate and remediate the situation as quickly as possible, always aiming to reduce any impact to our clients.”

Although students and classes may experience network issues, it’s safe to say that it generally works very well to support our vastly different needs all over campus. It can be frustrating for everyone involved, especially when it’s a larger problem around campus like it was on the week of Sept. 13. However, we can now understand that there is patience that needs to be extended towards eduroam and all that it does for the thousands of people it provides wireless connection to at a time. With that being said, the IST site provided a service announcement that the entire network core is being updated, which could take around a year to complete. Not only could this explain the disruptions we experience, but it also means that network performance should improve in the future. Make sure to pay attention to changes in function of the network, good and bad!