Patience in Progress: The $2.4 Million Quest for Improved Wi-Fi at Gettysburg
By Ella Prieto, Managing Editor
In March of this year, Vice President of Information Technology Rodney Tosten sent a campus-wide email detailing a major $2.4 million two-year project to upgrade campus Wi-Fi. Tosten then visited the Student Senate, addressing Wi-Fi improvement as a key issue to the College administration, which spurred the project to be instated.
“All this is because you have engaged with us and we want to keep hearing you engage with us. You’re important,” said Tosten.
However, as the fall semester began, complaints have already started to rack up. Every meeting of the Student Senate thus far has featured at least one student concern about poor Wi-Fi. On Sept. 30, Tosten and Director of Infrastructure and Computing Thomas Franza were guest speakers at the Student Senate meeting, hoping to alleviate those concerns and explain how the project will continue to unfold. Following the meeting, The Gettysburgian sat down with Tosten and Franza to provide greater insight to the student body.
“Most students know that wireless allows you to get cat videos on your devices,” started Franza. “But there is a lot behind it.”
There truly is “a lot” going into the Wi-Fi infrastructure on campus: 1,197 wireless access points, 85 campus buildings, 80 network switches, 12 outdoor access points, supporting network hardware, along with fiber and CAT6A copper wiring. On a daily basis, College Wi-Fi supports about 6,500 devices on wireless while fending off the roughly 50,000 to 60,000 devices attempting to join the network and around 20,000 to 30,000 internet attacks.
It is also important to understand how a corporate Wi-Fi system, which the College uses, differs from a personal one in terms of security. A personal Wi-Fi system is what students are most familiar with, and it allows guests of the family to easily connect using a password. However, there are privacy concerns associated with that.
“That’s fine for a home, but from a security point of view, well, that would mean that anybody that has that information [password] has access to all of your photos that you have stored on your computer. They have access to what you have on your smart device. So we need to have measurements in places,” explained Franza.
This is why students must register devices to connect to the College’s Wi-Fi and why some devices are not allowed on the network if they are deemed not secure.
“We do everything we can to be good stewards of people’s personal information and their devices to keep the campus secure,” said Franza. “The last thing you want is your information leaked on the internet or having something compromised.”
Furthermore, the registration process allows for IT to ensure that “chatty” devices, such as gaming consoles and streaming TVs, are on the wired network rather than the wireless. Such devices require a sizable bandwidth, so when they are not wired it can slow down Wi-Fi for everyone.
Tosten and Franza said that while these security protocols may seem overly complex, the measures are necessary to protect information and ensure that everything runs efficiently. The Wi-Fi upgrade project keeps those security components in place while also boosting the bandwidth.
For example, the wired network that connects the residence halls to the core ring has been upped from one gig to 10. Even if it might not feel like that yet, because the project is only in its first year, much has already been done.
During the first phase of the Wi-Fi update, the IT department has upgraded Wi-Fi in over 30 residence buildings, Musselman Library, Servo, the College Union Building and some popular outdoor sitting areas. They have also implemented the new Wi-Fi controller infrastructure. In the map shown, the orange rounded rectangles are what have been updated while the blue hexagons have not, as of October.
In this map provided to The Gettysburgian by IT, the orange rounded rectangles show buildings with updated Wi-Fi while the blue hexagons represent buildings that in which the upgrade are not yet complete, as of October.
This graphic provided to The Gettysburgian by IT shows how College Wi-Fi is distributed throughout campus and to individual devices.
Prior to the project beginning, however, IT slowly started to improve the existing system, purchasing new firewalls, negotiating contracts for more bandwidth and working on core routers.
Despite the work already done, many students complain about the difficulty in connecting with Wi-Fi and then staying connected. This is due to the time constraint in updating the system, as the Wi-Fi switched from Cisco to Aruba Networks.
“To some devices, it feels like there are two wireless networks here on campus,” said Tosten.
“And there are,” clarified Franza. “There’s the Cisco wireless network and the Aruba wireless network. They’re both called GBC Wi-Fi, and your device doesn’t necessarily know the difference.”
This leads to the dropping of Wi-Fi that students have experienced, as their devices transfer from one wireless network to the other, often getting confused in the process. While this is frustrating, the two asked students to stay patient, especially as they work under limited resources. Though $2.4 million is a hefty price tag, it is minimal for such an expansive project and they are aiming to work under budget. They are also condensing the time for such a huge project.
“In an ideal world, we’d stretch it just over three years,” Tosten disclosed. “But we knew we didn’t want to do that to the campus. So we’re just asking for everybody’s patience over this year.”
The IT team has worked tirelessly to complete this project, with a tremendous amount of work falling on their team of only several people. What students may not realize is the project also involves a great deal of physical work, as they must take out and install various technologies. Just with the access points, that includes about 1,200 that needed to be swapped.
“But that’s how dedicated we are to this project,” said Tosten. “And again, we are just begging for the campus’s patience.”
IT also asks that students please reach out to G-Tech with any issues pertaining to Wi-Fi, as they are often able to work through them, even over the phone.
“If people get here [G-Tech], which is one of the biggest things, if we can get people to this door, we can take care of them,” assured Tosten.
G-Tech can be reached at gtech@gettysburg.edu or 717-337-6935. You may also visit them in the West Building, across the parking lot behind the Jaeger Center. Enter through the blue doorway arch on the east side and follow the signs. G-Tech’s hours are Monday through Thursday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Friday 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This article originally appeared on page 3 and 4 of the No. 2 October 2024 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.
