On-campus students will soon have access to wireless internet in every dorm room.
UF’s Housing & Residence and Education and Student Affairs created the World Class Wireless initiative to install the connections after student interviews and comments from 2014 to 2016 showed a demand in accessible internet.
Wireless internet has been installed in nine residence halls under the initiative. Connections are currently being installed in Tolbert Area, and Beaty Towers should have wireless internet by the end of the year, said Matt Pendleton, the associate director of information and technology at Student Affairs.
“We need to make sure that the room is not occupied, that’s why we’ve been working really hard this Summer,” he said. “We’re about 85 to 90 percent done.”
Pendleton said money for the initiative comes from the housing rent students are charged every semester. However, he said rent rates should not be affected by the Wi-Fi installation.
Pendleton said dorm rooms used to share the same wireless access point, causing internet to be slow.
“Think about when you are in class, and everyone is on their devices,” Pendleton said. “The internet would start to get slower the more people are on it. So we wanted to come up with a design that would match the speed and the reliability of having that one ethernet port in your room.”
Diana Reuangrith, a 21-year-old UF psychology senior who lived in Buckman Hall in 2014, said there was no wireless internet in her room, and her laptop didn’t have an ethernet jack.
“It was very inconvenient because I would have to go to the Murphree Area Commons or the library to do my homework,” she said. “It’s really great that the school is willing to pay for it. Wireless internet has become an integral part of education — everything is online.”
