Wireless Internet is accessible from anywhere on campus, but those who live in the University Suites aren’t able to access the campus Wi-Fi.
According to Bert Brown, director of IT customer systems, the dorms have 10 wireless Internet access points. However, those access points don’t seem to be reaching the suites.
Bob Weber, lead infrastructure systems specialist of IT customer systems, said that it was true; there is no wireless Internet in the suites, though students in the suites are still finding ways to access their Internet.
“Students are notorious for bringing in their own wireless routers,” Weber said.
But, students may not have to be doing that for much longer.
“We just put 100 percent wireless Internet throughout campus,” Weber said, “and our next goal is to upgrade that to the next technology and move those wireless access points out to all of the dorms.”
Unfortunately, Weber said it may take up to a year to do this once all the equipment has been moved and activated. But when it is complete, wireless Internet access will be available to all who live in the dorms, including the University Suites.
Students have taken notice of this lack of wireless Internet and even created a petition group on the Web community Facebook. The group, called “NKU University Suites Wi-Fi Petition, which already has 90 student members in the Northern Kentucky network, was created by freshmen undeclared students Michael Piccola and Paul Bell, who both live in the University Suites.
Piccola said a year is a long time to wait for the Internet, but he’s glad the university is responding to his and Bell’s concern: “The fact they’re actually going to do it is cool, but I don’t know about a year,” he said. “But later is better than never.”
The description on the petition states that the University Suites is “possibly the easiest building on campus to give wireless access to and yet (residents) still don’t have it.”
“(Wi-Fi is) a lot more convenient when you can move around and use your laptop so you won’t be confined to the Ethernet,” Piccola said.
Piccola also said he finds it hard to concentrate in the University Suites computer lab: “The computers are overused, and that’s why I bought a laptop so I can work in my own little zone.”