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Oh, What a Difference a Year Makes

Turn the time machine back to November 2010, and it was clear that with the growing use of Internet applications and Internet usage, Western Illinois University’s Internet highways were getting clogged. What had before seemed an adequate 219 Mbps of service, including 115 Mbps for ResNet in the residence halls, 85 Mbps for academic and administrative functions on the Macomb campus, and 19 Mbps of service on the Quad Cities campus, travelling on the Internet often felt like rush hour traffic on a busy freeway.

Enter the end of 2010 Thanksgiving Break when resident hall students saw their Internet bandwidth increase 43% to 165 Mbps. The start of the new year brought the academic and administrative bandwidth up 47% to 125 Mbps at the start January 2011 classes.

Here we are one year after the first Internet boost, and it’s time to do it again. As of December 1, 2011 ResNet, Macomb academic and administrative users, and the Quad Cities campus will all see significantly increased speeds as Western increases it total bandwidth service from the 219 Mbps pre-Thanksgiving 2010 level, up 144% or nearly 2.5 times, to 535 Mbps.

All told, ResNet will see a second increase of 61%, bringing their bandwidth up by 130% in just one year to 265 Mbps. Macomb academic and administrative users will also see a second increase, this time an additional 80%, bringing their bandwidth up by 165% in just under 11 months to 225 Mbps. And the Quad Cities campuses, just in time for the opening of the new Riverfront campus in January 2012 in addition to the 60th street campus, will finally get a much needed Internet boost from the 19 Mbps they had to 45 Mbps, a 137% increase.

graph of 1 year increase of Internet bandwidth

from a traffic jam to open road

 

 

 

 

Yes, most definitely,
oh, what a difference a year makes
– from clogged highways
to the freedom of the open road.