Background:
For the past three years, 4CD has contracted with a third party vendor to add capacity to our Wi-Fi network. What we did not realize is that the new Wi-Fi access points were not tuned properly; neither the radio channels, nor the power settings were configured properly for our needs. This 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, building layouts, Wi-Fi usage, etc., and just as importantly, it is time consuming since it has to be done one access point at a time. At this time, there are over 900 access points across the District.
We have engaged the highest level of support from our vendor in troubleshooting the issues as well reviewing the logs and following up with staff and students. Concurrently with the troubleshooting we are also moving ahead with finding a 3rd party vendor to continually assess and maintain our Wireless infrastructure.
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:
2-27-23: The configuration changes include upgrades may require users to accept “Terms & Conditions” when connecting to college-wifi which should not be asked again for 10 working days.
2-27-23: There should be some improvement starting today based on the work from the past 48hrs.
2-26-23: Added all the changes back that were made in the past few weeks and also did the following to all Access Points (AP’s) district wide based on lessons learnt in DVC & CCC Library building (1) minimized the radios that broadcast the older 2.4ghz frequency (2) tuned the power settings on radios that broadcast 5ghz so there less conflicts among them as we have an access point in every classroom.
2-25-23: The newest firmware introduced unexpected issues so we had to restore the controller from backup then had to do another firmware upgrade to the 2n latest firmware and this process wiped out all of the changes made during the past few weeks.
2-22-23: Inactivity grace period changed to 30 minutes from 12 hrs at DVC and CCC, this should prevent controller from showing stale devices This inactivity timeout is not related to the T&C time out which is still set to 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