Wi-Fi, the coveted thing we all desire more than love. Wi-Fi gives us the ability to save money while connecting us to all our friends and family. The internet is our beloved source of entertainment, news, literature, gossip, and long nights of Netflix and chill. We can enjoy all these things in the comfort of the knowledge that it is free under the protection of Wi-Fi.
Unfortunately, for most of us poor college students, we do not have unlimited data and are at the mercy of our parents’ phone plans. When Wi-Fi is not available or just not working properly, we are left to the mercy of our meager data plans.
Those of us who have been attending UNH for awhile now know all too well the struggle of good Wi-Fi on campus. Personally, I have lived on campus for three years and I never had TOO much of a struggle when it comes to using Wi-Fi. Maybe once or twice a semester, especially during registration, I would have an issue that would make me want to throw my computer or phone out the window. But now that I am living in Savin, an off-campus housing option, which was my only option, I am having the worst Wi-Fi experience of my collegiate life.
Savin is made up of 20 or so apartment-like duplexes that house three students per apartment and yet I feel like there are a million people fighting over Wi-Fi bandwith. With each apartment, you are assigned a Wi-Fi network, mine being OLD_03 because I am in building three, but for some strange reason, my Wi-Fi only works in one part of the apartment–the kitchen. Then my phone switches to OLD_05 in the living room and then OLD_07 in my bedroom. The corner of my bed where my head rests, ironically, gets nothing! Occasionally, a NEW_03 pops up and that’s been the most effective Wi-Fi network, but it shortly disappears after a few minutes.
Maybe people in this complex have contacted their RDs, RAs, and IT and maybe it has even been “fixed,” but I have noticed no change. It has just gotten worse, especially these past few weeks. Sometimes, I just wait to use my phone on campus because the Wi-Fi is more reliable. I have all my apps’ data turned off, just in case of an emergency because I was constantly getting the “stop using data” threat from my lovely parents. At some points, I would just get so frustrated because all I wanted was to look at Instagram, or watch a cute cat video, or even just do some homework on Blackboard, and I would end up just saying “screw it” and use my data. In fact, I have used up 90 percent of my data and I still have three more days to go until a new plan.
It’s an ongoing battle of frustration and I know I am not the only one feeling it. Those on campus struggle with the same issue but I think that if I have to be inconvenienced enough to be put off-campus, at least give the comfort of watching Netflix without the interruption of a loading wheel. I only have one semester left, so I don’t expect much improvement, but a little more consistent Wi-Fi would be a nice way to end my last year, and maybe it will earn the University some brownie points on that graduate survey.
