I think that we’ve all experienced the notorious and infamous wifi issues in New York public schools, issues that seem to be a problem not just in New York, but across the U.S. This problem feels especially prevalent this year with the wifi being out for weeks on end at our school, leading to many cancellations and a constant need to work around the system.
While it does make sense that this would be a common issue, it is odd that wifi outages seem to plague most if not all schools in the DOE, and that schools never seem to be able to fix this issue. I wish to address some of these potential causes for these issues, how the school system is not well prepared against them without gaining new resources, and how these outdated systems hint to bigger issues within our government.
Firstly, many schools have too many people sharing the same network that has an insufficient amount of bandwidth (or too little transmittable data at a given time). With an increasing reliance on technology in schools and for homework, the system is often overwhelmed with more devices than it can transmit data for, especially when many assignments require large downloads that can easily slow down the wifi. This can lead to poor connection across the whole school, which is why each school is advised to have at least 100 kbps (or kilobits per second) for every student. However, with a strict budget from the government it is usually very difficult to afford something like this, also leading to disadvantages between schools.
This leads into the next point which is also a consequence of poor funding, that being schools’ poor technological infrastructure design. Technology is rapidly advancing typically faster than schools can keep up with. Routers that were installed ten years ago can quickly become outdated or even defective when it comes to the needs of modern devices, especially when most lack the needed maintenance to just keep up with these needs. This can lead to situations like ours, where these routers eventually give in and can result in long term wifi issues for weeks on end. New iPhones and computers are being rapidly improved and developed in just a few years, but school infrastructure is generally unprepared to maintain a steady connection.
This leads into the last point, which is how not just in the DOE, but in our overall government’s technological systems they are drastically outdated. In my own experience, I remember seeing one of the DOE’s systems and it still used a monochrome monitor, or in other words, the type of computer system that hackers use in movies that only has green text. The fact that our government still uses technology from the 1980s is just so odd to me, especially considering how it makes us very vulnerable to technological infrastructure issues similar to our problems with wifi, as well as potential cyberattacks that can cut off essential needs across the country.
In many ways our problems with wifi speaks to greater issues within the use of technology in the government, and how we are unwilling to adapt or aren’t aware enough of the widespread issues that plague many systems and specifically schools across America. The world is quickly adapting to the existence of this new technology, which is why it is essential to also pay attention to the backbone of the system and the infrastructure built around it, and adapt where it is needed. These wifi issues represent a smaller issue surrounding this greater problem, which is why we should take it as an important signal to rapidly start improving our technological systems before we are forced to learn the hard way.