Stuck in the library trying to upload a reading for class. Attempting to read the news on your laptop on the beach. Relaxing in your room trying to stream a video on YouTube. Almost every student at Hopkins has, at one point or another, struggled with the wireless internet server on or around campus.
While the Hopkins wireless server allows students access to the internet in various places across and around campus, the quality of the connection as well as its strength and speed vary wildly in different locations.
“Getting wifi is easy, but the connection most of the time is really bad, even in the library,” sophomore Hieu Tran said. “On certain levels the connection is worse than on other levels. In some places, I only get two bars [of signal strength] when I should be getting full bars. Sometimes, the internet stops working and it’s very unstable, especially in the library.”
According to Network Manager Calvin Sproul, Hopkins started applying wireless technology on campus back around in 2001, the year Sproul started his current post at the university.
“The first wireless building was Hodson Hall, around 2001 or so,” Sproul said. “Around 2005, we really [were] expanding wireless network and using 802.11 G technology, mainly for coverage purposes, to make sure the wireless spread to as much of the campus as possible.”
Utilizing an internet diagnostic test on speedtest.net, The News-Letter tested internet speeds at Hopkins and two other local universities; University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC) and Loyola University-Maryland.
According to the results of the internet speed tests, all three schools in the greater Baltimore area had relatively comparable internet speeds. Both Loyola and UMBC, however, had working internet in freshman dorms.
Currently, there is little to no wireless internet in freshmen dorms at Hopkins except in social lounges.
Some of the dorms at Hopkins were older and did not have the proper wiring to allow for WiFi.
“There is a plan to extend WiFi,” Sprouls said. “We are presently converting wireless in McCoy and Wolman, which should be completed by the end of the month. For the AMRS (which includes AMR 1, AMR 2, Building A and Building B), [the school is] going to renovate housing and as they do that, they will provide the wiring and the power and the connectivity to those access points, which should begin around next summer.”
The University’s internet speeds and power vary by location; in Gilman Hall, the average download speed is 6.03 Mb/s and the average upload speed is 13.05 Mb/s, whereas in Hodson Hall, the average download speed is 15.74 Mb/s while the average upload speed is 17.31 Mb/s.
Sproul explained that the university plans to switch to “N” routers which will massively increase internet speed.
“There are [currently] 2300 [wifi] hubs,” Sproul said. “[We are] starting to build out classrooms, where there are right now single access points in those areas. The network is ‘slow’ because it is a shared environment. Next on the agenda is [a] WiFi upgrade in Hodson. [We] recently upgraded the WiFi in the library and [we] are in on the ground floor in the Brody Learning Complex.”
Although students acknowledge that there are problems with wireless connections at Hopkins, some don’t believe that they are the most important issue to deal with on campus.
“The campus is set up in a kind of a weird way — we have a lot of space, and it’s difficult to get a network all the way around,” junior Hunter Brown said. “I think most people think it’s adequate and gets the job done.
“It’s possible they could do it better, but there are a lot of computers on campus so I don’t think it’s a high priority.”
