The Nicholls State University Student Government Association donated funds to be used on the University’s project to fix the long-standing wireless internet problems by the middle of the summer.

Charles Ordoyne, chief information officer, said, “Monies from SGA, a student Tech Fee and Administration were pooled together to purchase a firewall.”
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GA donated $40,000 along with the Student Tech Fee Committee and administrative funds combining to match SGA’s $40,000 and total $80,000 donated to the Information Technology department to purchase new software.
Lillie Bourgeois said, “SGA stepped up to the plate,” when “students, faculty, staff and administration all approached SGA in hopes for improvement on this issue.”

Ordoyne said, “We expect full implementation of the new firewall by June 30, 2016, and students will see significant improvements in the fall of 2016.”

A firewall is the part of a computer system that monitors what information is allowed into and blocked from a computer. In September of last year, the University’s wireless service suffered a Denial of Service Attack.
Bandwidth has also become an increasingly pressing issue over the last three or four years with streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu becoming more popular. There is less space on the wireless system and students are suffering the consequences of not being able to readily access sites such as Moodle and Banner.

The IT department conducted a successful trial version but are waiting until the summer to implement the new software incase of troubleshooting or a shut down during the set up.
Many students complained that they are unable to download school work or upload assignments. With much of the classwork today being assigned and submitted online, a strong wireless signal is important.

Kaya Allen, a freshman culinary major, said, “I’m an RA in Calecas and many of my residents have complained about the Wi-Fi being so slow.”

Olivia Bourgeois, a junior general studies major, said, “I lived in Scholars and had to put a Wi-Fi extender in my dorm room and a booster in my laptop to get a working signal.”

Ordoyne said, “Once the new firewall is installed, everyone on campus will be able to take advantage of the new 1GB connection instead of the 500MB standard currently being used.”
Wireless Internet has been a significant problem on campus for the last couple of years.

In March of last year Ordoyne said, “There isn’t an equipment budget to spend on updating all the equipment to the latest versions.”
The equipment currently in place in residence halls is over eight years old.

Lillie Bourgeois said, “In nine years the world of technology has greatly developed and with each student on campus using approximately three devices at a time, the current bandwidth cannot support the Wi-Fi, which causes it to send slower signals and to, sometimes, even crash.”

In addition to the funds being used to repair the Wi-Fi for the summer, the housing department will use allocated funds to continue upgrades in Residence Halls for future semesters.