Wi-Fi at SFU Surrey

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We all love it. It's around us everyday - whether we're at the coffee shop, home, or at work. Wi-Fi is always with us, allowing us to wirelessly communicate to each other. Best thing since sliced bread? Probably. All my communication's done nowadays over Wi-Fi - I don't have any ethernet wires at my home anymore.

Now, the Wi-Fi is great. At SFU Surrey, it's free, which is to be expected for us students that pay for it, and it's usuable. Best of all, we don't have to be tethered to a desk with ethernet outlets to enjoy the world wide web. We all rely on Wi-Fi to get things done. But the list of awesome things ends there.

It's a known fact to anyone who takes courses at SFU Surrey. The Wi-Fi becomes dreadfully slow in the peak hours of the campus - usually from 11:00am to 2:30pm. Of course, I took those numbers out of the blue, and the hours change depending on the day. But for most of the time, during that given time period, the Wi-Fi slows to a crawl. Anyone who's used SFUNET or SFUNET-SECURE would know what I'm talking about. Yes, I understand that the traffic is high. But given that the ethernet connections in labs are always super-fast, even at peak times, traffic alone is not an excuse.

Of course, there are alternatives such as SFUNET-SECURE. According to various individuals, it is faster. The catch? One must go through the trouble of setting up the dreaded certificates. Time-consuming and potentially troublesome for newbies, its not something that many people would do. Hence, the majority of users end up staying with SFUNET. Then there's the perfectly fine eduroam sitting there, but it's barely used, because let's face it, how many alumnis visit SFU? I'm sure it's fair to assume that most would be working at jobs.

Then there's the sore issue of Wi-Fi at the food court, just below the mezzanine. There are absolutely no signals whatsoever at the food court. There just aren't any signals at the food court. Given that the Wi-Fi signals from SFU reach even the bus stops, it's hard to believe that signals "mysteriously" disappear when passing from the mezzanine to the food court. There's food, there's internet, but you can't have both. I'm sure many people have been frustrated at some point or another when desperately trying to get some kind of a signal. In my two semesters at SFU, and the countless times I've been at food court, I've only received a working signal once. That was accomplished while sitting at the edge of the food court. Go in another metre, and the signal ends dead. I do realize that there are plenty of seats to be found in the floors of SFU. But what if when all seats are taken? Or for that particular time when there's the urge to sit at food court? Honestly, I wonder if the architects use some kind of a Wi-Fi absorbing foam when they built the mezzanine?

Bottom line, Wi-Fi at universities are suppose to work for the students. At UBC, even the unsecured network is quite fast, even at peak times. Even at SFU Burnaby, the unsecured SFUNET is still fast at peak times. Given that, why must students at SFU Surrey suffer the slower-than-molasses speed of SFUNET? We are just as humans as other students from other campses. We all paid for the internet access. I see no reason that justifies the lack of speed or consistency in SFUNET. Why keep all the little-used bandwidth for eduroam or ethernet while majority of the students suffer with unsecured network?

What it all comes down to is this: there needs to be some revisions and changes made to the current Wi-Fi system. We shouldn't have to live with dial-up speeds while rest of the world races ahead. We shouldn't have to choose between work or eating. Meanwhile, those who are fed up with SFUNET can take initiative and switch over to SFUNET-SECURE. Help your friends to make the switch. Anything but SFUNET.