The south side of the P Building at the Liberal Arts Campus endured an unscheduled internet shutdown Tuesday morning.
It was first discovered and reported shortly before Professor Gary Metzker’s Journalism 20 News Writing class at approximately 9 a.m. However, it was not fixed until 3:10 p.m. during Professor Walter Hammerwold’s Journalism 80 class for the Viking News.
Gary Metzker expressed his feelings on going through the unexpected shutdown. He exclaimed “I did everything I could to get it to work, but nothing was working!”
Metzker quickly thought of a work around to preserve some of the functionality of the class by writing vital information on the white board, despite the mild frustration.
Faculty from the Information Technology Department were sent out after their lunch breaks to address the lack of internet and were able to solve it within a couple hours
Rob Carman, the executive director of the IT Department, discussed what exactly had caused the internet issue and how it was fixed
According to Carman, two of the general hubs of communication batteries had died and needed to be replaced.
A transceiver is a device responsible for boosting the strength of a signal so that it covers a large distance. If it gets damaged or loses its battery life, then the signal is greatly weakened and the outer radius of the area being serviced may lose connection.
Once new transceivers were installed the internet was able to return to full capacity.
Carman mentioned one of the larger projects the IT Department has been put in charge of is updating the technological infrastructure in almost all LBCC buildings.
“We are investing in upgrading the campus infrastructure over the spring term,” Carman said.
This major infrastructure overhaul has a particular focus on some of the older buildings present on both the Liberal Arts and Pacific Coast campuses.
In the event that a similar incident occurs patience is recommended as the IT Department works as quickly as they can to restore things back to function properly.