By Diana Lydia
The average John Jay student carries up to three wireless devices.
The drastic increase in the use of wireless devices this semester resulted in the much needed expansion of Wi-Fi on March 1st, 2012.
The Department of Information Technology (DoIT) at John Jay, headed by Praveen Panchal, studied trends in the usage of the wireless network at John Jay for the past five years. They noted a gradual increase in the wireless link up from 500 devices per day to soaring 2,500 per day even before the creation of community hour. The department sent out a general email stating the need for expansion due to the over usage.
Both the Math and Science Resource Center (MSRC) and Laptop Loan Center have witnessed students flocking in to use computers and laptops.
“It gives me something to do on my never-ending breaks,” said John Jay Senior George Davidson.
Davidson represents a new wave of students that are going to the MSRC to use their open computers.
The new MSRC has removed blocks on social networking sites and YouTubewhich might explain the new wave.
Now a minimum of about 200-300 students use laptop loan center plus the students in the MSRC daily and then another 2000 bring devices from home. You don’t need to be a MSRC tutor to know that’s a lot.
Omatie Ramrattan, a sophomore, said, “With the amount of time I spend at John Jay, I might as well bring my laptop and get some homework done.”
Three years ago, when plans for the New Building were being finalized, the DoIT department stepped in to create a facility which was more technologically advanced than originally planned. The infrastructure of the New Building was created keeping in mind the overwhelming demand for a stronger wireless network, a network which the old building was not capable of handling.
Once the building was completed, it was time to implement the expansion plan. The expansion enables students and faculty to connect multiple devices to the John Jay Network without slowing the network down.
According to DoIT Network Manager, O’Neil Hinds, “The expansion simply fills the needs of faculty and students at John Jay, providing them with the latest in Wi-Fi technology.”
As a result of the expansion, student are not only able to connect multiple devices to the network with ease but are able to keep those devices connected to the Wi-Fi until their password expires, saving the student the hassle of having to connect to the wireless network every time they step into the building.
This expansion, like every other IT upgrade, was conducted during “downtime,” which is determined by studying the patterns of usage during the day. Downtime usually occurs during the late afternoon, early evenings or on weekends, when the majority of the students are not present in the building. During this expansion, the college Wi-Fi was disabled so IT could make the necessary changes.
Alicia Ramoutar, a senior and Math teacher’s assistant at John Jay welcomed the change as a sigh of relief.
” I constantly use Blackboard and with the network being so slow, it was hard to keep track of things and some places in the old building barely had a phone signal; at least now I’ll be able to get work done faster,” she said.
While some students take positively to the change, others haven’t noticed any changes to their network connection.
According to Matthew Angeles, a sophomore, the change makes little to no difference, “I can’t tell what the difference is. There are still some places where the Wi-Fi on my phone won’t catch a signal.”
Overall, students showed mixed feelings towards the expansion. Some welcomed the change, hoping it would make their lives easier while others barely felt that change had taken place.
It may just take a bit more work to make believers out of them.
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