Graphic courtesy of Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
By Tara Monastesse ’25
Staff Writer
The first reports of campuswide Wi-Fi issues began to trickle in on Jan. 25, one day after the spring semester launched in an entirely virtual format for a two week period. Internet traffic was at an all-time high during the day as students across campus simultaneously accessed their courses via Zoom. Alex Wirth-Cauchon, chief information officer and executive director of LITS, stated in an email to Mount Holyoke News that approximately 4,500 devices were connected to the College’s wireless network during peak hours last week.
The College’s two main student Wi-Fi networks — LyonNet-Encrypt and eduroam — dropped connections unexpectedly, leaving students unable to access the internet unless they had access to an alternative method of connection, such as a phone hotspot. LITS launched diagnostic and corrective efforts on Jan. 25. Between then and Jan. 28, 21 initial reports of Wi-Fi issues were received by LITS through various channels.
Sara Robillard ’23 experienced internet outages on a daily basis during the virtual learning period, but was able to work around it by joining Zoom meetings from her phone. However, even that was not a foolproof solution, as this alternative used up her phone’s data plan.
“One of my classes [kicked] me out, and I could not get back in, and I had already used a lot of my data plan earlier in the week connecting on my phone,” Robillard said. “I think we had 25 minutes left, and I was so fed up. I was just like, ‘All right, I’m done, I’m done with class for the day.’”
Robillard felt as though there was little class time spent catching up on the missed material, but she considers this an understandable loss. “You have to keep moving forward,” she said.
The Network, Systems and Applications Support team, consisting of seven members, has played a key role in monitoring and addressing issues with the College’s network. Other members of LITS, including the Help Desk, have also contributed to addressing widespread technology issues such as the recent outages. In addition, LITS sought assistance in resolving the issue from experts at the technology firm that designed the network, as well as from the information security firm that helps to protect it and from the hardware vendor who manufactured key components of the network.
Wirth-Cauchon released an update to the community via email on Feb. 3, which identified two specific issues simultaneously affecting the Campus network.
“The first issue is related to how personal devices now connect to wireless networks,” Wirth-Cauchon wrote. “Recent updates by technology providers use a randomized approach to device identification resulting in multiple requests to the network seeking an internet address from each device.”
“While we have plenty of bandwidth and hardware, the address allocation system would periodically become overwhelmed with the requests for new addresses as devices request a change,” his update continued.
The second issue outlined in the email was the widespread loss of connection across campus, correlated with times of particularly high demand. In these cases, one of the four controllers that supports the wireless network would unexpectedly drop its connections.
On Feb. 2, LITS sent out a simple Google Form to the College community via email that allowed users to report Wi-Fi issues. It prompts respondents to indicate which Wi-Fi network they are experiencing issues with, as well as whether the incident occurred within the last 30 minutes. From Feb. 2 to Feb. 3, the form received feedback from 924 unique community members, according to Wirth-Cauchon. An additional update from LITS sent out on Feb. 8 included a graph that tracked reports day-by-day — the total number of reports on Feb. 2 reached 1,409.
Both the LITS Help Desk and Wirth-Cauchon highlighted the form as a key component in tracking how network maintenance affected the community in real time. For students unable to access their classes in the meantime, however, it was sometimes the only action they could take.
Peggy Chen ’25 recalls filling out the feedback form at least twice during her distanced learning experience, during which she experienced Wi-Fi issues at least once a day.
“[Filling out the form] was the only thing we could do,” Chen said. “And in that situation, it kind of just enhanced the helplessness. You’re giving us updates, but really there’s nothing we can do except sit and wait.”
When her classes were interrupted due to connection issues, Chen would instead view video recordings of the lectures she had missed and take notes later in the day.
The return to in-person learning on Feb. 7 greatly reduced the demand on the wireless network. However, the issues have still persisted, albeit on a much smaller scale than the previous week. An updated architecture was applied to the networks one at a time, beginning with LyonNet-Encrypt on Feb. 9 and followed by eduroam on Feb. 10.
“We recognize the impact the ongoing intermittent Wi-Fi disruptions have been having on the College community, even as we return to in-person learning. We are committed to resolving the problem and continue to make progress in that direction,” the Feb. 8 Help Desk email stated.