Students have experienced difficulty accessing and using the Brandeis Internet service due to Brandeis bandwidth exceeding capacity and a single infected computer on campus, according to Director of Networks and Systems John Turner.Student complaints include a significant decrease in Internet connection speed, the effects of which have been felt since last year, and difficulty performing such tasks as logging on to LATTE and accessing the Web on the wireless network.

"It took me a half-hour to load a half-hour television show [on the wired network]. I have trouble even logging on to [Learning and Teaching Technology Environment]. Sometimes I can't even use the wireless network at all. I can't watch any of my shows or download any movies," Jonathan Pincus '11 said.

In an e-mail to the Justice, Turner wrote that "the greater problems students have been experiencing are a result of our Internet bandwidth being maxed out. We have seen the overall bandwidth usage grow each year, primarily due to the quantity of online video and legal downloads."

He continued: "We have 150 Mbps (megabits/second, the measurement of the informational capacity of a telecommunications medium) connection to the Internet, which in peak hours is being totally used up. We are currently looking into increasing the connection speed, but we need to be mindful of the financial situation and costs associated with the increase." Turner indicated that although over the years LTS continually attempts to increase bandwidth, the current economic crisis may delay LTS' efforts.

"[The Internet] just doesn't work," Jenna Glasenberg '11 said. "When the Internet doesn't work in East [Quad], I get very frustrated." She questioned why "I can't even use my computer" in light of "the amount of money [students] are paying" for tuition.

Hillary Bender '11 said she noticed that the slow Internet "always happens at 4 in the afternoon" and occurs "even though my computer claims that I have a lot of connection bars."

Turner also wrote, "Over this past weekend [Oct. 4-5] there was an infected computer on campus that caused a problem with our connection to the Internet. This resulted in a slow connection or in some cases no connection to the Internet at all. Once we identified the system causing the problems, we kicked it off the network and notified the owner."

Josh Jerusalmi '11 said he experienced a problem with the Internet connection even after the resolution of the infected computer.

"Last week the Internet was barely working, not on the wired or the wireless network. It wasn't working well in the Shapiro Campus Center or even in the library," Jerusalmi said.

When asked if the current economic crisis is having an effect on the?IT budget or on Brandei's Internet connectivity, Turner said that "we do not have any special cuts in IT, other then the announced issues covered in president Reinharz's statement."

Yet in an article in ITworld.com, Turner said his IT budget has been directly impacted by the current economic crisis. In the article, Turner said, "Our operating expenditure budgets have been frozen and cut, and we currently have a hiring freeze in effect. There is an obvious direct financial impact to our institution when there is this amount of uncertainty in the market.