Students living in residence halls and on-campus apartments should by now be well aware of the network interference caused when routers, personal hotspots and misconfigured printers are used. Yet problems persist despite the extensive effort taken by ResNET and the Department of Housing and Residential Education to inform students on this issue.
Last summer, various departments began collaborating to provide Wi-Fi coverage to all residence halls and apartments, with the goal of completing the project within two years. Amazingly, their work was almost done by December.
Now all that remains is to eliminate network problems for residents by tracking down and removing any device that broadcasts its own wireless signal.
Beginning with an email sent out in early August, the housing department and ResNET have been continuously reaching out to students to remind them that personal routers are prohibited.
Even so, in a 24-hour period this week, about 650 devices with a wireless signal were detected in residence halls.
When a resident complains of Wi-Fi problems, ResNET staff will often go to their room, do a scan to find possible sources of the interference and visit nearby rooms in an attempt to pinpoint it.
This time-consuming process is a big hassle for everyone involved.
At this point, students should no longer be oblivious to the policy to ban routers. The UNC-Secure network will work perfectly well in residence halls if students simply agree to discontinue use of their personal devices. Ignorance and apathy are probable causes of this problem.
Any law or environmental studies class will teach that the only solution to the abuse of a common resource, or the tragedy of the commons, is through harsh punishments. This is an unsavory solution and should be avoided.
