We are creating this page to effectively communicate the Wi-Fi troubleshooting steps we are taking in as much clarity and as quickly as we can without filling up everyone's inbox with updates. As you know the past three years, we had contracted with a 3rd party vendor to add the additional capacity what we did not realize is that these new access points were not tuned properly (the radio channels nor the power settings of the antennas among other settings) and it was partly because the additions were done during COVID times when the campuses were practically empty. Fine tuning Wi-Fi is an art that requires knowledge of radio frequencies, the building layout, Wi-Fi usage, etc. and just as importantly it is time consuming since it has to be done one access point (AP) at a time (we have over 900 of them at this point).
We have engaged the vendors highest level of support and are concentrating our efforts on couple of buildings by making one change at a time then watching the logs and following up with staff and students in the area. Our initial plan was to troubleshoot two buildings per site which turned out to be unrealistic, so we have concentrated our efforts to CCC and DVC Library building. Thus far, we have received positive feedback from those two locations on changes that were made, we continue to do intensive troubleshooting by reviewing logs and once we are confident that Wi-Fi is optimized as best it can in these two buildings then we can then confidently move to other buildings within the district. Concurrently with the troubleshooting we are also moving ahead with trying to find 3rd party vendor that can help roll out these changes to other buildings in order to speed up the process.
Although we cannot provide every step we are undertaking, we will attempt to provide summary below of major events as we make progress towards a better Wi-Fi.
Ongoing Updates:
2-22-23: Inactivity grace period changed to 30 minutes from 12 hrs. This should not prompt users to agree to the terms of service more than the 10 calendar days.
2-18-23: We attempted to do the recommended upgrade but it ran into issues so it could not be completed. Firmware updates still pending resolution from vendor.
2-21-23: Not related to troubleshooting but it’s Wi-Fi, ART and PE Complex at DVC are currently without Wi-Fi because of issues related to construction.
2-17-23: Continuing intensive troubleshooting, vendor support noticed that Wi-Fi controllers were showing stale devices (that is devices that have left Wi-Fi range) still as active. They asked us upgrade controller to their latest version of software to see if this would resolve this issue.
2-16-23: at CCC-Library, we also found some printers with Wi-Fi enabled that may have been contributing to ‘noise’ on Wi-Fi frequency which may be a contributing factor.
2-13-23: Devices were being prompted to “agree to terms & conditions” repeatedly, this issue has been corrected and now will ONLY prompt once every 10 Calendar days (that is maximum the system will allow)
2-13-23: Since there was positive feedback from the changes in CCC library we made similar changes to DVC Library building. This seems to have improved connectivity and speeds based on feedback from staff and students.
2-13-23: at CCC-Library, we changed configuration of the access point to specific frequency, changed antenna power settings among other settings. This seems to have improved connectivity and speeds based on feedback from staff and students.
2-6-23: Our initial thought (as described in email from 1/31/23) was to troubleshoot two buildings at each site which turned out to be too ambitious. After discussing with vendor support, we agreed to concentrate on two buildings (CCC and DVC library) and do an intensive troubleshooting of issues that were occurring there would be the best plan of action. Once we determined the cause in these two buildings, we could implement the changes in other buildings districtwide.
1-31-23: Wi-Fi update email was sent Districtwide, in that email we mentioned that we would focus the vendors troubleshooting to the following buildings:
CCC – LLRC and Science
DVC – Library and FO
LMC – SS and Science