Orange Initiative FAQ
Last Updated: March 20, 2023 12:28:47 PM PDT
Give feedback
Expand section How's Our Wi-Fi?
It seems that there have always been internet issues have been going on. How has your team put a foot forward in addressing these issues?
In the last three years, the number of installed access points has increased from around 6,000 to over 7,300. In that same time period, around 3,000 of our oldest access points were replaced. Two new redundant and enterprise-grade routers were installed before Fall 2018 and dedicated for the WiFi network. As a result of the problems last fall, new authentication compute power has been added. Future plans include the continued installation of new access points, the replacement of older ones, and the new WiFi backbone infrastructure to be ready in Fall 2020.
Along with all of this, our network team is constantly working on fixing outages and back end issues with the network. After the students left just before the end of 2019, the team conducted software upgrades to resolve a lot of the bugs that were severely impacting performance in the Fall.
What are you doing to improve access points and Wi-Fi over the next few years?
Even before the issues we had in fall, we've been planning for the next generation of the network backbone for the WiFi network. This includes higher capacity centralized wireless controllers, and brand new enterprise authentication infrastructure for the WiFi. We're on track to have those deployed in time for Fall 2020. Additionally, we anticipate continuing our normal improvements this year as we do every year. Those include the installation of hundreds of additional access points, and the replacement of around 1,000 aging access points. The installation of these new access points alone, would come up to roughly a million.
Why do we need data collection from our users?
The major WiFi issues in Fall 2019 weren't actually caused by a significant lack of WiFi coverage. While it is true that major load issues did contribute to a lot of network problems, many of the issues that significantly impacted WiFi performance were from back end software bugs that were not immediately clear to our team. The most important part of the data collection is being able to contact and troubleshoot with our users while they are experiencing the issue. This allows us to drill down on one particular user, and look into some symptoms that we otherwise would not have been able to see with the logs on our system.
Are we working with cell providers?
ITS is in communication with the cell providers and is exploring ways to work with them to improve service.
What was the biggest problem with Wi-Fi last year? Just the sheer amount of people on campus? Hardware failure? Other? All of the above?
Fall 2019 suffered from several separate, but unfortunately simultaneous, back-end problems that all combined to create too many bad WiFi experiences. There was no single cause. Software failures and bugs in our centralized wireless controllers were part of it (that have since been fixed with upgrades). We also have indeed experienced significant growth in WiFi users. Over the last three years we went from around 45000 simultaneous connections in 2016, to 60000 simultaneous connections in 2019. Our authentication servers were experiencing loading issues as a result (now resolved with additional authentication computer power and an additional server, along with configuration and feature changes). Our next generation WiFi backbone (scheduled to be in place for Fall 2020) includes all new authentication infrastructure. There were a couple of other back-end problems that also contributed, some of which the details are too long and technical to fit on a single post. Though WiFi isn't perfect on campus, we feel we've resolved the widespread back-end issues we experienced last fall. It's important for our customers to continue to report trouble so we can track down localized problems.
What level of service is acceptable? Should I be able to stream Netflix/Youtube? Or is the network considered acceptable if I can check my email?
We feel users should be able to stream video on our WiFi network. WiFi is a shared medium, though; a limit of the technology itself, not our deployment of it. So, it's true that all users connected to a particular access point have to share the bandwidth available. We do install many access points in areas of high density to provide as much bandwidth as we can. This is a work in progress, with hundreds of new access points installed every year. We'd love to hear (through reports to our service desk) of areas where it is never good enough to stream video, so we can see what we can improve.
Why do the ethernet ports in some colleges' residence halls need to be deactivated?
The vast majority of residential students desire to use WiFi over hard-wired wall jacks. Student surveys, along with actual usage of the wall jacks, over the last several years reflect this. Only a tiny % of wall jacks were actually being used. Accordingly, the Housing and Dining department has chosen to prioritize their limited funds for the improvement of WiFi in residential areas over the continued investment of in network infrastructure to support wall jacks that largely are left unused. The Housing and Dining department is pursuing the improvement of WiFi as fast as availability and funding allow.
Will the new Sixth college dorms have Ethernet? I use Ethernet right now and would prefer the faster speeds, as I have not seen speeds faster than ~200 Mbps on Wi-Fi. Large file transfers would make a huge difference with a wired connection.
The current plan is for new residential areas is to not have (the much less used) Ethernet in favor of using those resources to upgrade WiFi. As a result, wireless-only areas have upgraded WiFi compared to housing on campus with active Ethernet, so the new Sixth WiFi would be upgraded compared to the current Sixth WiFi.
Why did it take me all lecture in Solis Hall to download a 128 mb PowerPoint for my class? Using a brand new surface pro 7 and it didn't finish until the lecture was already over.
We're really sorry to hear about this poor WiFi experience you've had. There's a lot of factors that might go into why you may experience slow download speeds. These range anywhere from client issues on your device (malware, network drivers, self assigned IP), to a problem with the access point itself (signal coverage weak, excessive load). It is possible that the WiFi needs optimizing there. Other factors might include your device clinging to an old access point that is further away, even when you've moved to a new location with a closer, stronger access point. This is why when you turn your WiFi on and off, it sometimes begins to work a lot faster. Because of all of the factors that might play into why your download speeds are slow, the best thing you can do if you're experiencing general WiFi slowness is to submit a ticket to the Service Desk with the following information:
Mac Address:
Location of issue(Building name, floor number, room number):
Phone number:
The Service Desk's email is: servicedesk@ucsd.edu
And their self service portal can be found here: servicedesk.ucsd.edu
Something broken? Want to make a request? Submit a ticket | servicedesk@ucsd.edu.