Dear Editor, I am writing this letter in response to the article: ResNet’s Plans to expand with Western. I am appalled that the article made it to print. Where do I even start?
First, the article has no editing or proper grammar: “none are barking up the correct tree of information.” Is Ryan Fussell still in middle school? My niece has better grammar than him and she doesn’t even know her alphabet yet! Getting back to the article, when you want to make a point you need to do your research and obviously Ryan has not. “One might then ask, ‘Why is there no information where I expect it to be? Did the writer violate antitrust laws? Maybe his notes got washed away in a flash flood.’ (Here is the kicker) while these are valid ideas and questions, none are barking up the correct tree of information”. Ryan states in his article (Fussell 13). What point does this sentence have? Oh yeah, it doesn’t!
Now it’s time to get to the meat of the article. Ryan, why do you feel it is your duty to inform students that they will have difficulty reaching ResNet for assistance? I know that you did some investigating, if you can even call it that, but you were a little premature in writing the article. If you had been patient in letting your source respond, you would have had all the proper information for a professionally written article with the facts. This article is the furthest thing from that. Not once did you mention the students that work very hard for ResNet. I would personally like to thank each and every one of them for their dedication to their fellow students.
Ryan, in your quest to expose the crusty underbelly of ResNet, in response to an alleged violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, you failed to remember that exposure requires facts (such as the fact that there is no new server!) – not wild speculation. One last thing I’d like to point out – Ryan Fussell does not even live on campus, so how is he qualified to speak about whether or not residential students have access to ResNet? I don’t live on campus either, but I chose to research some facts about the real situation on campus.
Since Ryan was unable to lay out some of the facts of what Resnet’s plans are for Western, I will do so here. Residential Networking (ResNet) along with the networking department, recently added a firewall to the campus network to prevent viruses and other harmful data from entering the campus network and causing problems. ResNet also added a piece of hardware known as a PacketShaper to the network in the Spring of 2004. This hardware helps to prevent large file transfers from slowing down vital access to the network such as web browsing for research or e-mail access. ResNet, with the support of the Chancellor, is going to upgrade the residence halls over Christmas break with new hardware at a cost of almost a million dollars. This upgrade will help to localize problems that crop up in a particular dorm, instead of these problems spreading to other dorms on campus. This should result in more consistent network access and higher speed for students.
Many of the complaints that students have about slow internet access are caused by factors outside the control of ResNet, such as Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS) initiated by viruses on the campus network, or the large amounts of peer-to-peer file sharing being used by students on campus. Students can help contribute to better speeds for everyone by not using file sharing services such as E-Donkey, Bit Torrent, Kazaa, DirectConnect, or other Gnutella-based sharing services. Keeping their computers up to date with the latest anti-virus software and service packs is key to better speeds as well.
Instead of using peer-to-peer applications to get music, on-campus students can now use the Rhapsody music service for free by downloading the Rhapsody client located here: http://www.wcu.edu/it/downloads/ To obtain your username and password, just call IT Services at 7487. Many of my friends have been happily using it to listen to a library of 800,000 high-quality songs.
Now that some facts have been laid out, the students can see that ResNet IS being pro-active in expanding the network as the student population grows. Instead of looking at what is wrong with Western, we should also look at things that are being done right.
Peter W. Gallo
