New Internet at TiU

This week several people tweeted that they cannot connect to the wireless internet on the campus. By installing a whole new system this annoying problem will dissappear, says Corno Vromans, Director of Library and IT Services.

The university has 290 so-called “access points” which provide a campus-wide coverage. These can handle 4096 simultaneous connections, which has always been enough for the university. “Not anymore. Last Wednesday for the first time we did not have enough capacity for everyone who wants to connect via wireless internet. The – temporary – solution is simple: try to re-connect after few minutes. If there are less than 4096 connections running, you will be connected. ”

Of course, waiting until you can connect to the internet is not a long term solution.”It’s normal to expect that there is always internet on campus. Last year we started working on a new internet network, which should start working in 2 weeks. Apart from replacing the system, the number of access points will be increased to 500. When everything is replaced, the network will be able to hold about 12.000 connections simultaneously. The students do not have to install any additional software. Two things will change: the internet will be much faster and the problems with connections will disappear. ”

Cost

More efficient internet will cost the university €450,000. Half a million for improvement of network capacity, isn’t it a waste of money? “In recent years the number of internet users doubled every year. At the moment we have approximately 100.000 sessions per day.” The reason for the growth is simple. Almost everyone has a mobile phone with internet access, a tablet and a laptop. More and more people connect to the network from different devices simultaneously, which overloads the system. If this trend continues, the university will really need the increased capacity of 12.000 connections, and perhaps even more. The new equipment should be sufficient for approximately four to five years.

Problems?

It is the first time that the completely new system will be installed, so some difficulties are to be expected. “We have everything well prepared, but only after putting it into practice we will see how it works. In order to meet the demand during a lecture the number of access points has to be increased from 2 to 8, or more if necessary. If the access points interfere with each other, we will have to find another solution, so that each student in the classroom has access to the internet” says Vromans.