Sophia Cortez UTRGV community faces connectivity issues across campuses
Karla Hernandez/THE RIDER PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
Students around the UTRGV community have experienced ongoing Wi-Fi connectivity issues across several buildings on both Brownsville and Edinburg campuses, bringing awareness on how it has affected their performance.
“Absolutely,” replied Laura Balboa, an integrated health science junior, when asked by The Rider if she has had Wi-Fi problems. “Every day, every day since I started school.”
Balboa said some areas, such as the university libraries, have stronger connections; however, “every place on campus sort of flakes.”
“Sometimes, I am unable to connect to classes on time, or I have become really stressed if I’m going to be able to send an assignment on time since there’s no connection,” she said.
Jose Castilleja, assistant director of networking at UTRGV, said the university’s IT department has been aware of the issues and is actively working to improve the network performance.
According to Castilleja, failed authentications are often caused by user error.
“A lot of times, it is when they couldn’t authenticate,” he said. “It’s [because] they’re putting in the wrong password or the wrong UTRGV email.”
Castilleja added certain devices, such as Apple computers, can cause difficulties.
“That’s not on us; that’s a Mac issue,” he said. “… The problem is a lot of times the owner does not have a UTRGV laptop. So, we cannot work on it [because] there’s a liability issue on that. I mean, yes, we will help them, you know, to the best of our ability, but we really can’t be touching [it] or logging in.”
Israel Valdez, a nursing junior, said the connectivity issues can sometimes affect his performance in school.
“When you’re stressing because you need to turn in an assignment in, but the Wi-Fi crashes, or even on exam day, sometimes the Wi-Fi crashes as well,” Valdez said.
He said he has heard complaints about “dead zones.”
Castilleja clarified that construction building materials and access points capacity are factors in “dead zones.”
“If it’s concrete or block, it blocks a signal more than just a Sheetrock,” he said. “Usually our [access points], it takes like 30 to 35 people, and most of the lecture rooms … have more. That’s why we put two.”
Ana Cortez, a psychology graduate student, said she has experienced Wi-Fi issues in the Writing Center on the Brownsville campus.
“I haven’t reported it just because it does, like, eventually load, so it’s not like I don’t have access at all,” Cortez said.
The assistant director encouraged students to submit detailed help tickets, including location, device type and UTRGV email, in order for technicians to be able to trace connection problems.
“If they put their email, we can look after the fact they’re connecting,” Castilleja said. “It’s saying they were connecting good or they had a bad signal and, then, we could go from there.”
Despite the challenges, he emphasized the IT department continues to work to improve campus connectivity.
“We want to help,” Castilleja said. “We really want to help people. But sometimes it’s just hard, you know, I mean to be patient.”
For more information, visit the UTRGV IT services website.
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