According to a recent survey, students identified reliable wireless Internet access as the No. 1 tool they need in UNM study spaces, but the department doesn’t have the money to provide it.
Jane McGuire, strategic planner and chief information officer for IT, said slow and unpredictable service is caused by the fact that IT’s wireless routers are too old and too few in number. She said there would need to be a complete $5 million overhaul if students want to see reliable wireless Internet access across campus.
“You can’t have wireless without a wired network, so you have to have the wired infrastructure first and then you build the wireless on top of that,” she said.
McGuire said although the IT department’s budget is $32 million, there is not enough money to replace the old wireless routers, let alone to rebuild from the ground up.
“We would need approximately $5 million. We would need to replace the existing obsolete (routers) and increase the density,” she said. “You couldn’t do that all in one year. It would be that kind of thing that if you did over three years or five years you’d have to hire a lot of staff, it’s not just find the equipment, configuring it, deploying it.”
Emily Bulling, a first year graduate student earning an M.F.A in dance, said she experiences trouble in some areas.
“I don’t really use it that much to be honest with you; every time that I have used it hasn’t worked,” she said. “I’m a dance major, I’m in the dance building and we don’t have our own wireless in there so it’s a struggle to try and get it. We’ve all come to the conclusion that we’ll never be able to use wireless in the dance building.”
The Daily Lobo tested Internet connections in areas around campus. The best Internet connection of the those tested was at Zimmerman Library with a download speed of 9 mbps, according to the app, SpeedTest.
In an effort to garner additional funding to improve service, IT requested $128.84 per student from the Student Fee Review Board, but only received $16.39 per student.
SFRB member Greg Montoya-Mora said SFRB recommended this amount to help pay for printing costs, but not for wireless support, which the board said needs to come from other funds.
“In no way (did IT) expect us to fund all of their $3 million request, but through talking it out we found out what would be most appropriate for students to pay for, in this case (it was) software,” he said. “We don’t think it’s the student’s responsibility to have to pay to fix computers or replace them, that’s out of Instruction and General funding.”
The same fall 2011 survey reported 61 percent of students surveyed experience difficulty connecting to the wireless network at the University.
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McGuire said a $2 million budget cut for the fiscal year 2011-2012 means the department has been unable to make any equipment updates this year.
Although McGuire said the IT department needs more money from student fees, in its request for funds from SFRB it said $0 will go to improving wireless on campus.
IT spends about 30 percent of its budget on salaries for 150 staff and 75 students. These students and staff members work in all areas of IT, from maintenance of applications such as my.unm.edu to grade reporting and payroll. McGuire said IT employs only eight network engineers charged with taking care of all UNM’s wireless needs.
During fiscal year 2011-2012, IT’s biggest expense was help desk and workstation management at $706,806. Networks came in second at about $646,500 and third was about $483,500 for staffing and general administration.
Since IT did not get the fee increase from students it expected through SFRB, McGuire said the department plans on fundraising through foundations outside the University.
“We will be looking for grants from any external foundations, such as federal grant opportunities and also, I believe, there’s one from the National Science Foundation and local organizations that support development in New Mexico,” she said.
