Penn’s campus experienced bouts of poor Wi-Fi throughout the day on Sept. 3, disrupting classes and prompting criticism from students.
The problems were centered in the morning and early afternoon hours, according to students who reported poor connection in their classes. The students said that many of the problems seemed to be resolved by around 5 p.m. According to Penn Information Systems and Computing, 57 campus spaces between 31st Street and 38th Street experienced issues.
A notification sent at 3:12 p.m. by ISC attributed the outages to issues with the Vagelos wireless controller. It stated that these issues resulted “in problems connecting to wireless, disconnections, and slow wireless speeds.”
According to the notification, the affected buildings included Huntsman Hall, Houston Hall, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, Williams Hall, and the Annenberg School for Communication.
“ISC has made some adjustments to back-end configurations and is monitoring this issue,” the notification reads. “More information will be forthcoming when available.”
“Penn and ISC continue to invest in the critical infrastructure that supports our campus,” ISC Director of Communications Jaron Rhodes wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “It is always helpful to submit a ticket so we can better assess the problem location and identify issues in the most expedient manner.”
Rhodes also directed Penn community members to the ISC website for help determining how to report issues.
Students who spoke to the DP confirmed that they experienced Wi-Fi outages in at least 19 campus buildings. Several reported having technical support staff members standing in their classroom while class was ongoing, professors unable to take attendance, and instructional videos not playing properly.
Stephanie Zou, a College sophomore, told the DP that she dealt with poor connection during a 1:45 p.m. statistics class in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall.
Zou stated that her Wi-Fi stopped working in the middle of class, at which point she looked around the classroom to see if others were having similar issues. She noticed some students closing their laptops because they were struggling with Wi-Fi issues at the same time.
“That did actually affect my ability to save notes in the class, because I have my notes synced to the Internet,” Zou said, adding that some of her notes were not able to sync from Microsoft Word because of the Wi-Fi issue. “So I did actually end up losing a part of my notes because I had, at one point, turned off my computer to see if it was just an issue of my computer lagging.”
College sophomore Matthew Barotz also reported having issues with his Wi-Fi connection in two of his classes. He noted that during his environmental science class, his professor was unable to proctor an “online quiz” due to the poor connection.
Barotz added that, during his history class, he “was sitting next to two different friends, and they were both taking notes on their computer, and then all of a sudden their Wi-Fi just stopped.”
Barotz, who said that he saw many other individuals having problems with their Wi-Fi during their classes today, stated that he has had other issues with AirPennNet in the past — saying that it “has never really been the best Wi-Fi.”
College and Wharton senior Jacob Pollack, who is a former staffer for the DP, stated that in his three years of experience at Penn, the Wi-Fi is "always a little rocky when school begins," specifically citing his experience in afternoon classes.
Pollack added that his psychology professor stopped using an online tool to track attendance after experiencing issues on the first day, when he said that at least half of the class experienced tech issues.
College senior Emily Maiorano, a former DP staffer, stated that she “struggl[ed]” with trying to listen to her readings on Audible due to the poor Wi-Fi while working in Kelly Writers House during the afternoon.
Maiorano also claimed that the Wi-Fi this semester has been significantly worse than previous years in her experience, stating that it “just seems like it's been shut down this semester.” She cited an instance in her psychology class last week when her class was not able to use its "Poll Everywhere" software due to poor connectivity.
“All my time here for the past few years it’s been very secure with AirPennNet, but my whole semester so far I’ve had to use the guest network,” Maiorano said. “It’s like … I’m not a guest, which sounds so simple, but am I receiving worse Internet than my PennID should provide?”
Senior Reporter Emily Scolnick contributed reporting to this article.
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