Students and staff members at Washburn University are experiencing numerous problems with the Wi-Fi including disconnections and slow internet.

“We are in the middle of a transition between one scheme of wireless networks and another one,” said Aaron Hall, director of Systems and Networking Services. 

Hall works for the IT department and has experienced the Wi-Fi issues firsthand. He explains that as of Thursday, Sept. 19, the issues have “disappeared” and the people in his department have worked to fix the disconnections students have been experiencing with their servers. Hall claims that there are several factors that played into the Wi-Fi issues including the current transition between networks and fall being a busy time of year.

“We had to turn on a meshing feature that we had never used,” Hall said. “It caused a whole bunch of unnecessary traffic of wireless antennas talking to each other. We figured that out on our own, turned it off, and that basically immediately solved 95% of the problems.”

Hall then explained that there is a particular server the IT department recommends for students and staff to use for their personal devices. Most devices should be able to connect to the “Ichabods” server and stay connected. To access it, students and staff simply enter their Washburn email address and password. 

“It’s really bad on my computer, so it’s hard for me to get work done,” said Heaven Asebedo, freshman medical imaging and social work major. “Anytime I’m around campus, my internet gets disconnected randomly, and it takes 10 minutes to get it back up.” 

This is a serious problem that affects students and staff daily. Assignments, communication and resources are all found online. If the internet is difficult to access, then the productivity of everyone on campus is limited. Even though, according to the IT department, the problem has been solved, issues are still occurring.  

“My messages just don’t deliver,” said Carmen Villegas, freshman biology major. “When I was in [a friend’s] dorm my messages weren’t sending.”

Villegas’ recent experience shows that Wi-Fi issues are still affecting devices on campus even though the IT department claims the issues have been resolved. 

Edited by Stuti Khadka and Morgan Albrecht