Since this summer, the University of Calgary’s’s campus Wi-Fi has been going through a massive upgrade that, according to several student accounts, has caused ongoing network issues and connectivity problems.
In response to these complaints, the U of C provided a campus update acknowledging issues that some students, staff and faculty have experienced, stating that “IT is actively working to identify and resolve these issues as quickly as possible.” The service optimization is expected to continue through March 2027.
The upgrade aims to improve the reliability, performance and long-term capacity of campus Wi-Fi. This transition comes after years of complaints. In 2024, U of C students told CityNews that frequent outages “disrupted their ability to study and complete assignments”.
Despite the upgrade, students continue to flag slow connections, difficulty joining the new UC-Secure network and note periods where the network is inaccessible altogether. Some say the problems have also affected their ability to participate in class.
In an interview with the Gauntlet, the U of C’s Chief Information Officer Trevor Poffneroth explained that IT had spent the first weeks after students returned “tuning and trying to fix some of the problems” that emerged under real campus demand.
“There is nothing like having 50,000 devices come onto campus all over the period of a week to be a real-world test,” explained Poffneroth.
Daphne, a computer science student, said they experienced connection issues throughout a summer course while the network transition was underway and was unable to connect reliably during the first several weeks of the fall semester.
“The Wi-Fi was absolutely terrible,” Daphne said.
Connectivity problems have also affected classroom tools that require students to be online. Both students interviewed by the Gauntlet said they had experienced difficulties using Top Hat, a platform used by some instructors for attendance, participation and in-class questions.
Daphne reported having “lost a few marks already,” due to the unstable connection on campus.
Jacqueline, a communications and media student, said their devices sometimes automatically connect to the “eduroam” network before they manually switch to UC-Secure. Even after switching networks, Jacqueline said the connection does not always work and they sometimes have to use their phone’s hotspot.
U of C IT said the upgrade involved replacing aging wireless infrastructure across campus, rather than simply changing the network name from “airuc-secure” to UC-Secure. Poffneroth clarified that the previous wireless equipment had reached the end of its supported lifespan, with the replacement intended to reduce the risk of outages, improve reliability, performance and capacity.
IT also explained that the network continues to be monitored and optimized following the rollout as remaining connection problems are identified.
Poffneroth said some problems are specific to areas where IT needs to adjust wireless coverage, while others occur when demand increases across the network, such as during class changes.
“We had to tune the system to be able to adjust when 50,000 people get up and move all at the same time on a class change,” said Poffneroth.
Students have also submitted tickets to the university’s IT department. Daphne reportedly submitted multiple tickets but only received an answer to one, which explained that IT was working to resolve the problems and that some issues were expected during the beginning of the school year.
“But it’s been like a month and a half now and we’re still having issues,” said Daphne.
IT said reports from students are useful in identifying where connection problems are occurring and encouraged users who are experiencing issues to continue reporting them. When contacting IT, students are asked to include information such as the building they are in, the device they are using and the network they are attempting to connect to.
While the university says final project work and service optimization will continue through March 2027, it is not yet clear whether students will expect connectivity problems to continue for the duration of that timeline. Poffneroth described optimization as an ongoing process of improving the network’s stability and addressing issues as they are identified.
The length of the transition has raised questions about how students are expected to manage academic work that depends on an internet connection in the meantime.
When asked about connectivity problems interfering with students’ coursework, Poffneroth emphasized the importance of reporting specific issues so they can be investigated. U of C currently allows students to report connection problems, dead spots and intermittent access through its Wi-Fi issue reporting system.
The university directs all students who continually encounter issues with the Wi-Fi to contact the IT Support Centre. Students can also report an issue through the UCalgary Support website.
