Following the switch from the lsusecure Wi-Fi network to eduroam in May, LSU students and faculty are struggling to access the network both on campus and abroad. University Information Technology Services is working to find a solution to the problems with the Wi-Fi.
Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope said the Wi-Fi network isn’t working as well as expected.
“It works for some, doesn’t work for others,” Cope said. “It seems most people fall into the ‘doesn’t work’ category.”
Kinesiology junior Sara Pendleton said she had trouble getting the Wi-Fi to work on campus.
“I had to call the IT help desk and eventually go to the library to have it fixed,” Pendleton said. “They were able to help me log in, but it made me re-enter my info every hour or so.”
Cope also reported having trouble accessing the Wi-Fi in certain areas of the University’s campus.
“It works in my office but not in the [Faculty] Senate room,” Cope said.
Clayton Ellison at the ITS Help Desk said that most of the problems people are having with the Wi-Fi are due to them not logging in correctly.
“You need to log in with your ‘@lsu.edu’ email instead of your [myLSU] ID,” Ellison said.
However, Cody Leegwater, a junior currently studying in Grenoble, France, said that she hasn’t been able to log on to the local university’s eduroam, even when she uses her LSU email.
“It gives me an error message saying that it could not connect,” she said.
Sheri Thompson, ITS communications and planning officer, encouraged students to report problems with eduroam to ITS.
“We want people to send in complaints about the Wi-Fi so we can address those issues immediately,” Thompson said.
She also said that students who plan on using eduroam abroad should contact the ITS Help Desk about setting up the Wi-Fi before they leave to travel.
Cope said that only three of LSU’s eight campuses have switched to the eduroam network. The Faculty Senate and ITS are working on making eduroam the primary network at the remaining five campuses as well as improving the network’s accessibility.