With the inconsistent internet connectivity at the University recently, University Information Technology Office (UITO) Director Fr. Carlos ‘Charlie’ Cenzon, SJ, shared that the combination of new Wi-Fi access points together with new and old switches not communicating well has contributed to the recent on-and-off internet experience.

Fr. Charlie explained that the Wi-Fi access points arrived earlier than the switches, as switches take up to three months to one year to be delivered.

To lessen the occurrence of unstable Internet connection, the UITO upgraded the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for the three universities (Roxas, Matina, and Bangkal) to one gigabit and implemented an automatic help system.

“If one goes down, the other one will help us. Within five to 10 minutes, without us doing anything, the other ones that are working will connect to the one that’s dead,” Fr. Charlie said.

The director further shared that some individuals–employees or students–were plugging in their own routers, which is prohibited under the Policy on Acceptable Use of Electronic Resources. Such illegal connections brought specific network segments down and exacerbated the intermittent network connections.

Nonetheless, Fr. Charlie believed the internet experience is already doing better than in the past month. However, he encourages the student body to understand that they still cannot provide strong Wi-Fi to every classroom.

“As of the moment, [we need to] make students understand that this is a big change for us in terms of infrastructure because before, we did not provide internet to all classrooms, laboratories, and offices, ngayon lang,” he said.

IT fee possible to increase next acad year

Their office also considered increasing the Information Technology (IT) Fee if the University wants to continue utilizing its internet infrastructure and technologies.

He stated that the current amount was only enough to pay for Microsoft, Google, firewall, and internet services, leaving no budget to cover the more expensive network infrastructure and room equipment. 

With increasing demands from different parties and the high equipment cost, the UITO director stated, “We know what we need to do, pero ang problema is we cannot do everything all at once. It has to be staggered through the year and even the next years.”

Ideally, the proposed fee increase will begin for the 2024-2025 academic year and “will stay the same way.” 

The UITO Director also encouraged students or faculty with concerns regarding the internet, such as dead spots, especially inside classrooms and laboratories, to contact their office through [email protected] or via their helpdesk website.