By Katie Maddox, News Editor

The Armstrong campus received a tiny, but important change on campus June 1: new Wi-Fi. More importantly, students only have to log in once to this new network called “Armstrong.”

“It’s new altogether. The reason [for a new network] is to better the experience for students especially, and for faculty and staff. It also allows you to only log in once, and it downloads a profile. Up until the point you change your password, you never have to worry about putting in your password again,” Angel Howard said. She serves as Information Security and Quality Assurance Officer, and Interim Director of Infrastructure.

“It’s a better experience all around for everybody on campus,” Howard continued.

She describes the need for this new system as students wanting “the Starbucks experience; something that’s easy.”

The IT department knew a majority of students weren’t happy with the old Wi-Fi, Compass.

“One of the downfalls that we know of is students have had to re-login, if they went from one end of campus to another, the connectivity seemed to have dropped and they’d have to re-login. And this [new Wi-Fi] takes you away from that.”

“We’re using the same wireless internet infrastructure that we’ve implemented. We had an overhaul about a year ago where we put new physical equipment in, and this is just beefing up that infrastructure and making it a better experience on the front end,” Howard said.

To log on to the new network, students must use their Active Directory username and password. Howard urges any students having difficulty logging on to contact the IT department.

“We appreciate any feedback. Hearing from [the students], letting us know what is working, is great feedback. We’re more than happy to work with anybody.”

Jennifer Crumpton, a senior English major, is happy about the change. “Remembering all the different passwords is really annoying. The Compass password was a ridiculous password.”

Ann Fuller, Assistant University Librarian at Lane Library thinks that “the new Wi-Fi is going to be a huge improvement for students on many fronts. No long, cumbersome passkey to type in and I believe the network itself will be more robust and less likely to drop students as the Compass network was known to do.”

“I am very happy about this improved resource for our campus and I think our students will be very pleased too.”

For help logging on, go here or call the Helpdesk at (912) 344-2518.