Slow, Intermittent Wifi Frustrates PEA Community

It has happened to many students—you try to access your homework for the night, and Exeter Connect fails to load. Perhaps you write an email to fellow club members, and the WiFi suddenly shuts off before you press send. Or perhaps you settle in to watch your favorite show’s season finale, and the dreaded buffering icon fills your screen.Uppers Tarun Thummala and Minh Nguyen were sitting in their dorm room one Tuesday night when a particularly nasty spell of Internet lethargy affected their devices. Thummala then decided to create a petition that read: “Phillips Exeter IT Department: Fix the WiFi/Ethernet at PEA.” The petition has garnered nearly 100 signatures from frustrated students.Thummala recounted some of the WiFi problems he has experienced that prompted him to create the petition. “I have put in over six separate requests asking the IT people to come in and fix the WiFi in my room and around me,” he said.“For about two weeks I didn’t have Internet last year until they finally put in ethernet. But they still had never really fixed the WiFi,” Thummala said. “I thought that when I had come back they would have fixed it, but instead I had no WiFi for about a week until I had to get my ethernet reinstalled.”

History instructor Giorgio Secondi called the effectiveness of the petition into question, arguing that it was not the best solution to the problem. “I don’t know that a petition is the best way to go, but it’s certainly appropriate for students to express their concerns. Doing it through StuCo may be more effective,” Secondi said.However, despite his concerns about the methodology, Secondi firmly supported the requirement of stable Internet at theAcademy. “Without question, wireless is essential for both students and faculty. In Webster, IT is still working on optimizing the coverage,” he said.This fall, Internet issues have become increasingly common among students. Lower Phillipe Louis, who signed the petition out of frustration, has experienced the problem regularly.“The school WiFi was so bad that my laptop would disconnect because the signal was so weak, so I had to wait 30 minutes to try again, but it was still slow. The slow WiFi also prevented me from accessing my email to contact my teachers,” she said.Many comments on the petition complained that the slow WiFi speeds hamper productivity and lengthen homework times, and that the sporadic nature of the Internet will certainly affect both the grades and stress levels of students affected. “WhenI’mdoingmyhomework,andIneedtheInternet,it’sreally slow sometimes and really fast other times, thus adding to the time it takes to complete my assignments,” lower Aszaree Hood said.As Exeter becomes more reliant on technology and the Internet’s resources, somestudentshavenoticedtheslowWiFispeedsmoreacutely. “Alotofmy classes use online resources to share homework and classwork material, such as Moodle for computer science and Canvas for physics, and the slow WiFi definitely affected my ability to access these resources,” upper Jason Won, who also signed the online petition, said.Several students have noticed that the increased traffic generated by study hours within the dorms has a direct correlation to the speed of the Internet.“From around eight to eleven every night, the WiFi becomes terribly slow. I understand that it may take a lot of time to improve it, but during that timeframe, most students are doing work and many need WiFi to complete their tasks,” upper Hiro Kuwana said. “It slows down majorly when everyone is using it. More people are using the Internet every day and in the future our current WiFi speed won’t be sustainable anymore. With the increased amount of people using the Internet, it may become brutal just to open one thing.”“It’s fast enough to do anything most students would need to do, but if I want to watch Netflix or a video on YouTube, or even if I just want to browse multiple websites at once, it can become difficult,” Kuwana added. “Sometimes websites can take around 10 seconds to load, which in the large scheme of things is not that much, but even a few seconds faster saves anyone using the WiFi a lot of time. We are supposed to be one of the greatest preparatory schools, so our WiFi should live up to that standard.”Looking towards the future, WiFi will continue to become a more essential part of both student and faculty lives as Exeter becomes more technology oriented. Although many Exonians find the WiFi sufficient for now, students such as Kuwana believe IT should begin planning ahead for future years when the standards may be raised again. “I think in the long term, they have to figure something out because more people are using the Internet every day, and in the future our current WiFi speed won’t be sustainable anymore,” Kuwana said.