Internet service at the University Center was restored Monday afternoon, Sept. 8, after a weekend-long outage that disrupted homework and visitor access in Columbia’s largest residence hall.
The outage, traced to an equipment failure at AT&T’s Chicago data center, also shut down package delivery lockers, flex dollars for the market, phone lines and printing. Students with meal plans still had access to the cafeteria because staff logged cards manually.
The internet was restored just before 3 p.m.
“I am very glad that it’s fixed because I was honestly pushing off work that I needed my laptop for,” said Mary Chandara, a junior graphic design major. “I’m definitely very happy it’s back on.”
The University Center at 525 S. South St. houses 1,700 students from Columbia, DePaul and Roosevelt universities.
The disruption coincided with DePaul University’s move-in weekend and left residents relying on hotspots and cellular data because the Student Center and all other Columbia buildings were closed on Sunday, Sept. 7.
The college’s Housing and Residential Experience office did not respond to email.
The UC management team sent an email to residents just before 1 p.m. to let them know a necessary part was on its way.
“We share your frustration and disappointment that a major carrier does not keep critical spare parts locally — especially in a city of this size,” according to the email. “We are continuing to press both AT&T and Pavlov for the fastest possible resolution.” Pavlov Media is the property’s internet service provider.
To help with the disruption, the UC staff delivered packages directly to individual units on Monday.
But students told the Chronicle that they were upset they couldn’t get visitors into the building, including some who had traveled from outside of Chicago and had to find an alternative place to stay in the city.
Typically, a visitor to the UC has to give the security officer their government-issued ID, and the officer inputs the information into their system. They give the IDs back and then give the visitor a pass to keep while inside the building.
No visitors were allowed while the internet was down.
Sophomore musical theatre major Mya DeCesare said she received a text from her cell service provider over the weekend while working on assignments, alerting her that she had used 75% of her monthly high-speed data because she was relying on her phone’s hotspot to connect her laptop.
“Wi-Fi is a part of our daily lives,” she said. “For how much I’m paying a semester, I shouldn’t be charged extra for included amenities.”
Mackenzie Oberlin, a sophomore musical theatre major, said that she was getting anxious about having to email professors about late assignments only a week into the semester.
“It was really frustrating, we pay a lot to be here,” she said. “Since they house so many people here, they should have a backup plan for something like this happening.”
Like most students impacted by the outage over the weekend, Oberlin completed several assignments using her iPhone’s hotspot, which used her cellular data.
“A lot of my assignments were done on my phone, but then when I had to leave the building, the battery was drained, it was very stressful,” Oberlin said.
Additional reporting from Eleanor Lusciatti
Copy edited by Vanessa Orozco
