As you may have recently noticed, the quality of Internet speed campus-wide has been terrible, to put it nicely. Whether I am attempting to stream a short video off of YouTube or use my Netflix account to stream a video (which I paid for, and this problem renders it nearly useless, unless it’s the right time of day), I wind up waiting very long, as the video downloads and buffers. I have investigated the matter and tested the actual Internet speed to find that on evenings, it is not uncommon to only have a connection of 200-500 kilobits per second (kbps). This speed is terrible and is of lower quality than most basic residential DSL packages, which are typically the slowest form of broadband Internet service you can get. This speed is so poor that nearly any sort of broadband connection used off-campus is destined to be faster. Part of this problem is that the Internet has grown at such an exponential rate that using large amounts of bandwidth is not uncommon for the typical student who is downloading music off of Ruckus or watching videos on YouTube. Unfortunately, although we pay a technology fee of $105 every semester, the University has not used this money to upgrade its networking capabilities and is using some equipment that is at least five years old. Another lesser-known part of this problem is that the University previously used two different Internet providers to the north and south campuses with enough bandwidth that no problems should occur. This plan was discontinued this year. Now, the sole connection is responsible for all of the University’s Internet service, one which is clearly insufficient.

Hopefully, by bringing attention to this problem, we as students are not afraid to speak up and we will get the administration to face the problems that are occurring and is forcing today’s Internet-savvy students to resort to using the Internet at off-hours of the night or just avoid video-heavy Web sites altogether, as though we are back in 1999.

A University student who works for Student Computing Services submitted this letter. If you have any questions, you may e-mail him at [email protected].