The Internet was down on the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 13 for the addition of a new connection, although the installation was not completely successful. Now, a week later, the internet bandwidth has been increased by over 423 percent, which will mean much faster download times and page loading times.
The new cable Internet line being run in by Broadstripe, the same company that provides the school with cable, will add 100 Mb/s to the internet upload/download speed. The installation was delayed because the new line had to be configured to work in conjuncture with the old one, according to Scott Stephen, associate vice president of information technology.
“We will make an announcement to the campus when this work is completed and we have both connections working in tandem,” Stephen said.
The previous campus internet upload/download speed was 27 Mb/s, provided through a program known as Merit Network, which provides services to schools, libraries, non-profit organizations, health care, and government in the state of Michigan, according to Stephen.
Before this latest upgrade, Albion ranked behind schools such as Kalamazoo College and Hope College, which had bandwidths of up to three times that of Albion. Kalamazoo College currently has a 40 Mb/s connection and last summer added a traffic-shaping device that allows administrators to control and prioritize network use, according to Greg Diment, associate provost for information services at Kalamazoo College.
“But this bandwidth upgrade moves us ahead of many of our peers,” Stephen said.
Administrators at Hope College were unavailable for comment.
“I really enjoy playing games online, but that’s not why I’m most excited about this,” said Brandon Veremis, Saginaw senior. “I can’t wait to actually be able to do my homework on a Sunday night when everyone else is online trying to do theirs too.”
Stephen said Albion has increased their bandwidth in the past as the budget has allowed. Because of cost savings in other areas and favorable pricing, they were able to make this major increase this year.
“Our hope is that we will all see a big improvement in speed and usability,” Stephen said.
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