BY: DANIELLE CLARK, STAFF WRITER
Students at St. Bonaventure University who experienced Wi-Fi outages this year may soon see improvements after the campus technology team were able to find and fix the issue.
Mike Hoffman, chief information officer, who oversees Technology Service, explained that the problem began in late fall and was difficult to identify due to its inconsistency.
“There was a blip that was happening for some reason that was causing access points to lose connection to the primary controller,” Hoffman said.
The university operates hundreds of wireless access points across campus that are managed by a primary and backup controller. When the system experienced disruptions, access points would briefly disconnect and attempt to switch to the backup system.
The outages were short, often lasting only a few minutes, and Technology services received no complaints.
“We had very few, almost no, calls to the help desk because it was resolved within a matter of minutes,” Hoffman said. “The intermittent nature of the issue made it especially difficult to fix.”
After months of investigation, the university’s infrastructure team believes it has identified the cause. During spring break, the team performed system upgrades and repairs to address the issue.
“We think we got it; we really won’t know until enough time goes by and it hasn’t happened again,” Hoffman said.
The issue was not related to outdated equipment. The university’s technology is relatively new and regularly updated through ongoing improvements.
In addition to the Wi-Fi disruptions, the university also identified a separate issue involving internet service providers. St. Bonaventure uses two internet circuits, and when one provider experienced a disruption, traffic was rerouted to the other.
However, the transition between providers did not always occur smoothly, which could make it seem like Wi-Fi had gone down. During break, the team also addressed this issue by testing campus fiber connections and replacing damaged lines.
“Now we’re not seeing any errors at all,” Hoffman said.
With both issues addressed, university officials say they expect a more stable connection moving forward.
“The team did a lot of work last week and we think going forward, things should be in a better spot,” Hoffman said.
Shortly after the interview, students experienced a campus wide Wi-Fi outage, raising questions about whether this issue has truly been fixed.
