Last year, persistent Wi-Fi issues at M-A caused grief for students and teachers alike. However, this year’s connection has been notably faster and more stable. So, what has M-A done to make it better and has the speed been able to stay consistent this year?
We tested the download and upload speeds with Google’s internet speed tester in every wing to see if M-A has a consistent internet speed throughout campus. If you want to see the speed throughout the entire campus, take a look at the map below!
Last year, there were many complaints surrounding the Wi-Fi on campus. Students couldn’t get online, teachers had to switch their lesson plans due to slow connection, and everyone was getting kicked off the network.
English teacher Rachael Wan said, “It wouldn’t be a standstill, but we would have to change up the format. I would instead have them do some reading or discussions, or I would do something on the whiteboard instead. So it wasn’t like class had to stop—it was just that we had to shift things around and whatever I wanted to do that day might not have been possible because of that.”
Senior Emma Hamlin said, “It kind of had spurts where it’d be really bad for a week, and then it’d be fine for a month, and then there’d be another couple days where it’d be really bad again.”
Hugo Reyes, who works at the IT Desk at school, explained, “If there’s a combination of a lot of devices—like laptops, chromebooks, desktops, and cell phones—at once, like during testing, then the speed of the internet will go down.”
However, since the beginning of the school year, the Wi-Fi on campus has noticeably improved. In fact, when 837 M-A students took the digital PSAT in October, none experienced a single Wi-Fi problem. This is mostly because the District made changes to the school’s Wi-Fi over the summer to try to improve it for the coming school year.
AP Computer Science teacher Jonathan Simon said, “I will say that this year has been much better. My opinion is that it’s where it needs to be and it makes it much easier to get done what has to be done.”
Temo Martínez, who works as a network analyst at the District, explained, “There were multiple factors, but I think we resolved them in the last six months. The main issue was that the devices that were giving Wi-Fi were too old. It was time for an upgrade.”
He said, “We installed new Wi-Fi devices in various locations across the campus to give better service to everyone. I also adjusted the Wi-Fi so that every single device had its own lane in the network, where before, everyone was fighting each other for the Wi-Fi. Now, iPhones are not fighting Androids, and MacBooks are not fighting over other Apple products over the internet, so now everything is more streamlined.”
Martínez continued, saying, “Someone who even logs onto the guest Wi-Fi will have a better experience now than they did last year because it was on a connection so low that you couldn’t really stream anything without it hiccuping.”
Now that the connection has improved, we tested each wing around campus and calculated the average speed to determine where it works best.
Overall, the internet speeds around campus were very consistent; most wings had a consistent speed of 90.3 Megabytes per second (MBPS) while downloading and 69.9 MBPS while uploading. While this is great for doing daily school tasks like turning in homework, if you want to do more intensive tasks like uploading big files, there are certain spots around campus I would not recommend.
For downloads, the D-Wing recorded one of the lowest download speeds throughout campus, averaging 72.8 MBPS. While the I-Wing, home to the AP Computer Science classes, had relatively high download speeds, its uploading speed was disappointing with an average of 72.1 MBPS. However, these are both likely due to the significant amounts of traffic in students.
The first floor of the G-Wing stood out for its fast downloading and uploading speeds, generating 110.9 MBPS for downloads and 111.5 MBPS for uploads. By contrast, the worst area to transfer files was near the bear statue in the PAC, which recorded low speeds of 36.3 MBPS for downloads and 23.53 MBPS for uploads. If you need to download any size file, we do not recommend you do it near the bear statue.
Overall, the speeds around campus were very consistent. You likely won’t have a difficult time downloading or uploading files around campus with the exception of two general areas—the D-wing and the area near the bear statue.
Check out the map for internet speeds around campus here!
https://studio.mapbox.com/tilesets/817195.cloxh1qzd16581nkgr4ejz4uh-3yqdb
