After the many complaints and malfunctions of Wi-Fi on campus, Elgin Community College expanded and implemented new access points to the network during the summer.

According to Philip Howard, ECC Managing Director of Network Operations, and Mark Damrose, Network Architect at ECC, the decision was made after talking with different vendors and other colleges like College of DuPage, who had the same solution.

The access points on campus went from 177 to 391, distributing them one per classroom.

According to Howard, three-quarters of the devices that are connected to the network are phones, one-quarter are laptops or tablets and each access point serves 25 students with two devices each.

“With so many devices, we wanted to make sure that we’d planned for anything that students are bringing in,” Howard said.

Karen Monraga, a student at ECC, said that the changes are noticeable. Last semester, it was very difficult to connect her phone to the network in certain buildings.

Another ECC student, Jonna Harrison, who took classes during the summer, said that she has not experienced any trouble since then.

“Back in the spring semester, I took some classes in building F, and the signal was just bad,” Harrison said. “It wouldn’t work at all, but [that] is not the case anymore.”

On the contrary, a few other students are still complaining about it.

“The Wi-Fi connection is even worse than the last time I was here,” said Juan Hernandez, a student at ECC. “I think I [had] more signal last semester.”

Hernandez assures that the network connection through the hallway that goes from building B to building F is null, and that wasn’t the case last semester.

There are two networks on campus, ECC Public and ECC Secured, and according to Howard, ECC secured is good for phones and tablets since it will remember your device connection all the time. ECC public will remember the connection up for a week, unlike the old network that used to disconnect the devices all the time.

Howard also states that he hopes this big change positively impacts the education here at ECC.

If any student experiences any trouble or notices any areas that need more coverage, don’t hesitate to reach the Information Technology and Services department at ECC.