Ed. note: For those who are having trouble connecting, the help desk has a self-help guide here.
Kathryn Avila stood in line with a dozen other students, waiting for an attendant to signal her over with a wave. She had tried connecting to the UF wireless network on her smartphone earlier, only to be met with a loading screen.
There were still four students in front of her.
“I’ve had issues with the Wi-Fi ever since they changed it last year,” said Avila, a 20-year-old criminology senior.
She said the lack of Wi-Fi forces her to use mobile data while on campus, which burns through her monthly limit.
“I can deal with it since I have data on my phone,” Avila said. “But it’s a major inconvenience, you know?”
With the beginning of the new semester, the UF Help Desk has had a significant increase in traffic as new students attempt to connect to campus internet.
Steven Simon, a 22-year-old electrical engineering senior who works at a UF computer lab, said the issue isn’t with the network, but with students incorrectly following directions on the help desk’s website.
Simon said the help desk services thousands of students a semester, and their problems are typically resolved quickly.
Simon alleviates congestion at the help desk by pulling students from the line and assisting them with their issues connecting to the wireless network. He said the lab pools resources with the help desk when lines start causing delays.
A large portion of the problems came with new conditions for joining the network that were implemented in Spring, Simon said. Students attempting to use campus Internet must have anti-virus software installed and an updated version of Java.
“The requirements are good for the health of the network,” he said. “One infected computer could affect thousands of people connected.”
Simon said as long as students install the two and set them to automatically update, they shouldn’t have a problem connecting.
According to the help desk’s wiki, in order to set up computers and smartphones for wireless access, users must first connect to the “ufinfo” network. After opening a browser, a webpage will automatically pop up allowing students to install the necessary software.
Hailee Sapp, a 20-year-old education junior, said she typically doesn’t have an issue with the wireless on campus.
“When I do have a problem, I take it to the help desk and I’m usually out in a few minutes,” she said. “It’s always been pretty easy.”
A version of this story ran on page 5 on 8/27/2013 under the headline "UF Help Desk sees increase in Wi-Fi-related requests"
