The Information Technology department at Nicholls State University believes they have found the source of the wifi problems that the university has been experiencing.

Students have been expressing problems concerning wifi on campus for the past few weeks. The IT department has been trying to find the cause of the problem since the complaints began. Chief Information Officer Charles Ordoyne said the source of the problem might have been determined yesterday.

“It’s been a struggle to find the source of the problem for the past couple weeks because there are about 500 wireless access points on campus,” Ordoyne said. “I think that we have figured out the problem might be a piece of equipment that controls those access points isn’t working.”

Ordoyne said that if the equipment is confirmed to be the source of the problem, the issues are hoped to be resolved in the next 24 to 48 hours.

“People are using technology every day,” Ordoyne said. “Some of that technology is five or more years old. There are thousands of dollars worth of equipment that are key to making network connections across campus work.”

Ordoyne said that he knows what the needs of the students are, but there isn’t an equipment budget to spend on updating all the equipment to the latest versions.

“We know what needs to be done,” Ordoyne said. “Funds will be found some kind of way to replace every access point to the newest versions that can handle more devices at a wider range. We’re going to change it all whenever the funds are available.”

The IT department sent out an email on Friday asking students to report any problems with wireless connection so the problem could be resolved. Ordoyne said that the responses helped to pinpoint the problem. Many students are open to discussing the problems they’ve been experiencing.

“I’m taking 17 hours this semester so I always have something to work on between classes,” birth to five/early development sophomore Brooke Mazac said. “A few weeks ago the wifi started being spotty but it wasn’t unbearable. It’s gotten progressively worse to where I got shut out of MyMathLab a few times during an assignment. Last week I couldn’t even open my moodle page because the Internet was so slow. With the majority of our classwork being online, it’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything significant when the Internet is unreliable.”

Students have had to access the internet by other means than wifi since the problems began.

“I’ve been dealing with these wifi problems, and it disables me from researching from my computer,” mass communication sophomore Deante’ Baham said. “I actually have to turn the wifi off on my phone and use my data to research, which is sad because date runs out fast and it’s not cheap.”

Ordoyne said that a network support team is working to reach a resolution now that a potential source of the problem has been found.

“I hope the guys in the department really came across the solution and can resolve it,” Ordoyne said. “That’s what we’re hoping for.”