Drury University’s internet services have been plagued by slow speeds, spotty coverage and connectivity problems. David Hinson, Drury’s chief information officer and chief of staff, believes those issues will be fixed next semester.

David Hinson. Photo via Drury University.

Drury University has partnered with Apogee, a company that specializes in working with internet on college campuses, to completely overhaul Drury’s student residential network.

“Partnering with Apogee means that we will have student residences on their own networks with their own internet,” said Hinson. “It will be separate from the academic network. We’ll be putting in new routers and switches in residences within our fiber network and also for the on-campus cable TV. At the top of Olin Library, we’ll be installing three one-meter sized antenna to pick up satellite programming.”

This expansion in the cable services means that Drury students will be offered a wider variety of premium TV programs and channels, including HBO.

“The benefit to students in addition to the expanded cable offerings is dedicated bandwidth to the students’ needs on campus. We’ll be adding more access points on campus, which means a higher density and more connectivity for students and their devices,” said Hinson.

With this increase in connectivity and signal strength, students will be able to connect more devices to Drury’s internet at once without having to worry about slow internet speeds.

“Students can also purchase access to more devices and bandwidth while using the new network,” he said. “We’ll have 24-hour support and a part-time, on-site support person for the hardware. It’s really going to allow us to up our game in terms of student support.”

Thanks to Apogee, this new network will allow the university to upgrade every residential area at the same time.

“For example, last time we updated, Sunderland got new equipment but not everyone else did,” said Hinson.

As students move to the new network, it will not become as clustered or slow as the current network. The university intends to retain the current network for academic services and use the Apogee network specifically for residential areas.

Some students may worry about the added cost of this plan. After all, upgrading internet networks is never cheap. However, Hinson stated that student cost would not accrue because of this upgrade.

“All of this is going to be funded by the student technology fees,” Hinson said. “There’s going to be no [extra] cost to the student at all.”

The technology fee is a part of every student’s tuition. Each semester students pay the fee for access to the university’s wireless network.

Hinson was optimistic about the timeline for the completion of the upgrades.

“The plan is to begin implementation on May 15 and to finish the upgrades by June 15,” he said. “In the fall, when students return to campus, they will be given handouts and the RAs will be given training on how to help new students. It should be a nice coming home gift.”

Drury students will have one more thing to look forward to when they return to campus next year: a new internet network.

Article written by Ryan Smith.