DeKALB | NIU believes it has found the reason for the Internet problems experienced by students and faculty on Monday.

Jim Fatz, director of Information Security and Operations, said the problem occurred when a service provider for NIU changed some of their equipment.

Fatz said when the equipment changed the routing tables, which is used by the university for the Internet 2 connections, also changed causing the connections to be dropped.

“Internet 2 connections are specifically designed to help connect universities and research centers to each other,” Fatz said.

Fatz said the equipment was changed by the service provider in Texas and the problem was resolved sometime over night.

Harold Raddle, senior mechanical engineering major, said he was at the library Monday night and didn’t experience any problems with the Internet.

“I was printing stuff off Blackboard for one of my classes and it was working fine,” Raddle said.

He said he was on the computer from 10:30 p.m. until the library closed and said he didn’t see anyone having problems in the lab.

Law student Jake Rubin said he had trouble connecting Monday afternoon. He said from 1:30 to 2:45 p.m. he couldn’t browse the web for one of his classes.

Fatz said the problem can be hard to understand because Internet connections are not point-to-point.

“If you were to send an e-mail from here to Chicago it won’t necessarily go straight to Chicago,” he said. “The path the e-mail takes is based on the Internet provider’s agreements and routing tables around the country. So that e-mail could be sent across the country or even overseas before it gets back to Chicago.”