Students may be wondering about e-mails they have received recently which have included the words "Internet Connectivity." Internet Connectivity is not a club, nor a service provider. It is a term that describes our college's Internet capabilities.
"For some years, WC has had only two T1 lines," said Technical Services Technician Cal Coursey. "Each T1 line is capable of handling 1.5 Megabits per second (Mbps)."
T1 lines, Coursey explained, are a way to access the Internet, just like using normal phone lines and a modem. They, however, allow much faster access. T3 lines, the next step up, are equivalent to 24 of the already-quick T1 lines.
"We would have loved to get a T3 line, but we couldn't afford it," Coursey said, explaining this is in part due to WC's removed location. "Maybe in Baltimore [we could afford it], but not here."
Already, the T1 lines WC will have after the end of this month will make its access far superior to internet access in years past, when WC had only two T1 lines. "Our old provider, Crosslink, couldn't seem to improve that for us, so we began to look for a new internet provider in late March of 2001," explained Coursey.
"In the course of the review, five large companies interviewed, including Qwest, AT&T, and AppliedTheory, which we chose," Coursey said. He went on to say that AppliedTheory "has taken over. This was all supposed to transpire in the summer. We did not plan to have the students and faculty suffer through this."
AppliedTheory, in winning the contract, agreed to provide the school with six T1 lines, and had hoped to have it done by the end of this summer.
"It was planned to be done by the end of July, but there was difficulty getting the T1 lines into the Eastern Shore, which is a remote location," Coursey said. "At the beginning of the school year, the former provider, restructuring its network capacity, began to reduce the WC connectivity in preparation for losing the account."
He also added that until last Friday, when the first T1 lines were put into action, the connectivity of WC "equaled 2/3 of a T1 line." Another thing that is still being worked on is WC's IP addresses.
"In the world of the Internet, addressing must be announced by the major providers so that computers can find one another and send data back and forth," Coursey said. "We're still in the process of changing how our IP addresses are seen by the rest of the world. That's still in flux."
Currently, three of the eventual six T1 lines are up and running, after their installation last Friday. The other three that are promised in AppliedTheory's contract with the school are anticipated to be in use by month's end. "They may be installed singly, but they won't be brought on singly," Coursey noted. "They have to be tied together."
Another improvement to the school's Internet assets is the purchase of 4,096 additional addresses. Previously, 4,096 were borrowed from the internet provider, and 254 were owned outright by WC. Now, all pages that are used by WC are also self-owned.
As to WC's Internet connectivity, Coursey said, "We really are working to improve internet connectivity for all the WC community, including the students, faculty and staff."
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