Every morning, students come in armed with Macbooks and iPhones, which depend on the school’s wireless network. However, Tuesday morning, April 2, an issue with the guest network prevented students from connecting to the Wi-Fi. The glitch resulted from a system wide change, according to an email sent out to students and staff. The change has since been reverted.
According to Head Librarian Julia Roberts, the changes were an attempt to improve network speed.
An email sent to students and staff identified the changes as a “response to the ever increasing demand on our network resources.”
This slow internet access has inconvenienced teachers and students, according to Director of Technology Natalie Carrignan.
The changes may be a preview of improvements for the future. “They’re going to implement a new system in the summer,” said Roberts. “They’re going to improve the infrastructure.”
However, the changes caused the network to go down. “It’s some sort of initiative for next year and I think they were testing it for today and they didn’t tell anyone ahead of time,” said librarian Robin Stiles.
The disconnection from the Guest WLAN network was a hassle for students. “I wanted to program remotely but I had to program locally, which is a little more stressful,” said Parker Stakoff ’14. Even on a more basic level, the glitch caused issues. “I had to use 3G on my phone instead of wireless,” Stakoff added.
Some students, unable to connect to the guest WLAN network, logged into the WPS WLAN network. “It was a nuisance for five minutes, until I figured out how to log in,” said Baxter Stein ’14.
However, students are only supposed to use the Guest WLAN network, according to Robin Stiles.
“We were trying various fixes on site,” said Roberts. Library media center people sent out tech reports about the issue. According to Roberts, town technology staff fixed the problems within a few hours.
“Our latest step in the continuous process of maintaining an efficient and reliable network was not a success, so we quickly went back to the drawing board,” Carrignan said.
The change has since been reverted and the wireless network is back up. “It caused mayhem for a little bit, but then they very nicely cleared it up after a few phone calls,” Roberts said.
