Dive Brief:
- The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is racing to upgrade its wireless infrastructure to handle increased demand and avoid a breakdown.
- Doing an audit of network and data use is a good place to start, and then IT offices need to request additional funding to maintain infrastructure and create redundancy, Campus Technology reports.
- While anticipating demand seems to be hard to do as students and faculty consistently use more bandwidth than expected, planning ahead is key.
Dive Insight:
UT-Chattanooga worked some cost savings into an infrastructure upgrade by hosting the National Guard on campus for a training exercise. During its stay, the National Guard upgraded much of the fiber on campus. Colleges and universities should also be on the lookout for partnerships like this to incorporate necessary fixes into other operations. As more elements of campus life go wireless and faculty rely more heavily on the connections to teach, IT infrastructure must keep up.