Wi-Fi outage disrupts start of semester

Editors Note: This story was updated on Sept. 3 at 8:10 P.M.

On Sept. 2, Utah State University released an email update on the wireless network instability issues.

According to the email, a third cause to the problem was discovered which required help from the manufacturer of USU’s network routing hardware.

“We are in active calls with them on both short-term workarounds and a permanent solution, and our own team continues to work the problem in parallel, with additional work scheduled for after classes conclude at 10:30 p.m. tonight,” Hawley wrote in the email.

As of Sept. 3, the network routing manufacturer has provided a temporary fix to the Wi-Fi issues.

In an email released that morning, Eric Hawley said the root cause of the problem is still under investigation and a permanent fix is forthcoming.

“We are currently supporting over 23,400 simultaneous devices on wifi without network drops,” Hawley wrote in the email. “Any further work to test and apply a permanent fix will be done after hours and will not impact events or operations.”

Students and staff reacted to the Wi-Fi issues, many of them saying the outage impacted the normal flow of their classes.

“Things that should have taken a couple seconds with regular internet took minutes upon minutes, and that just compounded,” said senior Andrew Burton.

Professors shared a similar sentiment.

“It’s really kind of knee-capped a lot of the work that you do as a professor, because you know these are the days when you’re finalizing your Canvas pages and getting your files uploaded,” said associate professor in the Department of Communication, Deb Monson.   

Students who live on campus dealt with other challenges.

“If you live on campus, it’s hard because it’s the same Wi-fi,” said freshman Sadie Carter. “I’d have to, like, walk over to my church.”

Despite the challenges, students said they’ve experienced improved connection within the last few days and are hopeful it will continue.

Further outage updates will be shared on https://it.usu.edu/outages.

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USU sent an email announcement on Sept. 1 regarding the statewide wireless network issues that began at the start of the semester.

Eric Hawley, USU’s chief information officer, said in the email that the instability resulted from two load-related issues. These issues often occur when a wireless router or local network experiences too much traffic at once.

The email said one of the two issues has been resolved.

“The problems are largely limited to wireless,” the email said. “Wired connections remain stable, so teaching stations, computer labs, and university online services are unaffected.”

While wired connections remain unaffected, personal devices such as laptops and phones may continue to experience slow or no Wi-Fi connections.

Hawley said university teams are working on resolving the second issue regarding wireless connections, and real-time updates on the situation will be available at https://it.usu.edu/outages. 

An email will be sent to all statewide campuses once the issue is fully resolved.