All of Choate’s campus will be covered by one Wi-FI newer, faster network, “Choate,” by this September. Choate’s Director of Information Technology Services, Mr. Andrew Speyer, predicts that “the dorm experience will improve dramatically in spaces where they don’t have the ‘Choate’ network now, especially in big places like Memorial House, Nichols, Bernhard, and Tenney that are all on ‘CRH’.”
Choate ITS has been working to convert the “CRH” network to the “Choate” network for the past three years. The motives are simple: improving life both inside and outside of the classroom. “It’s part of infrastructure improvements. We’re committed to wireless across campus to make it better and faster, as much as we can,” said Mr. Speyer.
For a time, the only Wi-Fi network on campus was the one called “CRH.” This network was made by a company called Juniper and is an older, slower Wi-Fi than “Choate,” made by Aerohive. The newer network has the highest designation for Wi-Fi speeds, Wireless-AC, while “CRH is older and does not have that AC designation,” according to Mr. Speyer. He continued, “We switched from Juniper to Aerohive because of scalability, maintenance cost, and speed. It’s a much better product in terms of coverage and how many devices can connect. It’s easier for us in ITS to manage.”
Many students agreed that switching to one Wi-Fi network is more convenient. “They should switch to one Wi-Fi,” said Gigi Sherbacow ’20. Jessie Goodwin ’20 added, “That’ll make things easier. I don’t think there’s anything negative about that.” Others seemed to think the switch will not have much of an effect on them. “I don’t think that having one network is going to make that much of a difference,” stated Josephine Mah ’18. Lucy Carpenter ’20 “never even noticed there were two.”
There is no doubt in many students’ minds that Choate Wi-Fi needs changes. Mah shared a problem she experienced with the Wi-Fi: “The science center’s Wi-Fi is always really spotty, and our class would get really annoyed because a lot of our work is based on the Internet. People would get frustrated because the science center’s Internet is just not good.” Sherbacow, a Nichols resident, added, “The Wi-Fi in the basement is very slow.” Aurelie Temsamani ’20, also a Nichols resident, agreed, simply stating, “The Wi-Fi is so bad.” Because most dorms are still on the older “CRH” network, students are hopeful that the addition of the new “Choate” network access points in coming months will help address these problems.
While this project has run smoothly for the most part, Choate ITS had its fair share of bumps in the road with the conversion. “Last year, we made a couple of changes and we switched our email into the cloud, into Office 365, and we realized that our coverage with the newer model, ‘Choate,’ especially in Humanities and Steele, was poor,” said Mr. Speyer. “This was because we didn’t have an access point in every classroom — we had access points in geographic areas that cover multiple spots. It was jamming. The Aerohive’s one problem was the coverage. We were scrambling trying to add in access points. This year it’s been much better. We don’t have as many drops or problems.”
While the conversion is well on its way towards its set end date, some students have concerns. “I don’t know if switching over to one Wi-Fi network is reliable because there’s nothing to fall back on if one of them doesn’t work,” expressed Vincenzo DiNatale ’19. “Though right now, the Wi-Fi in the library works for me constantly.” Other students are satisfied with the way the Wi-Fi network at Choate is now, and so, change or not, it will be fine. “I think that it’s pretty fast,” said Jordan Obi ’20.
Mr. Speyer expressed that the change should not necessarily be seen as “bad” to “good.” Rather, he stated, “we are going from a good to a better performance.”
