Many of you might have noticed the increase in internet speed over the past week or so.

That’s because the IT staff recently increased the campus’ bandwidth by 60 percent. Prior to the upgrade, the connection speed was 25 megabytes per second, but it has been boosted to 40 megabytes per second.

Tom Kruse, senior director of information technology, said Loras has reached its maximum capacity, which is limited by the equipment owned by both Loras and the internet supplier.

You also might be wondering why the internet was down for a few hours the Monday after returning from break. Many of us blamed our bandwidth limitations, but that was not the case. The internet shutdown was the result of a power outage in the server room. It was an unforseen complication that Loras’ technology staff could not control.

Don’t fret if your internet is still a little slow. The technology department plans on purchasing and installing equipment that allows for an even larger upgrade in the bandwidth.

So how does this new system hold up? First the good news, YouTube now is manageable. Beforehand, speeds of videos streamed off YouTube either had us getting the video right away or, more likely, waiting “forever” (as we’re all fond of saying) for the video to buffer.

In the past, it often was necessary to pause the video while it downloaded so that you wouldn’t be interrupted while you watched it. Now there’s more waiting.

“Students should see more improvements and, as we tweak it, those improvement should continue to increase,” said Kruse. He added that the technology department is now in the process of figuring out the best way to distribute bandwidth amongst students, faculty and all the buildings.

In the meantime, one of the things that students can do to help increase the internet speed is to watch video before 3 p.m. or after 10 p.m. The speed is the slowest between 3-10 p.m.

Also, if you brought your own wireless router to school, don’t use it. Extra routers can make the entire campus go down. So please be patient for the sake of your fellow students and just use the wireless that Loras already provides.
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Ashley Slota contributed