Logging on to the Internet isn’t as easy as it seems for students who live in the residence halls.

Students are experiencing a slow connection or no connection at all.

“I get kicked off the Internet every once and a while, and have a slow connection most of the time,” said sophomore biology major Devin Rasberry. “I’ve called ResTech in the past about this and they told me it was because of bad weather.”

Rasberry isn’t alone.

“In the past, I’ve lost my connection for days at a time,” said Paul Kucera, sophomore physical therapy major. “I have to use the computer lab downstairs, only to find it full because nobody in the whole building has a connection, either.”

James Fatz, director of Enterprise Systems Support and ITS security, said ITS is well aware of the problems students are facing with lost connections.

“Neither the ITS Helpdesk nor the ResTech support group have not been aware of any persistent issues regarding loss of Internet connections,” Fatz said. “If students are experiencing no connection, it could be caused by several situations. From a technical perspective, we do have variable limits on Internet usages.”

Fatz added that heavy traffic and file-sharing programs could be to blame for the slow connection that many students suffer from.

“Any program that’s peer-to-peer creates a server service on the users’ workstation [often unknown to the user], causing their connection to be slow. Also, sites which are interactive and use downloadable controls such as MySpace or anything with streaming content will slow down users’ connections.”