UK students have been experiencing difficulties with the university provided Wi-Fi, eduroam, during the first weeks of classes.

Eduroam is a global company that provides Wi-Fi to thousands of hotspots in over 100 countries, according to its website. UK, one of the many users, has hotspots located over the entirety of campus, in which students are able to login with their linkblue username and password.

Sophomore Osman Siddiqui said that while he is content with the Wi-Fi most of the time, he has experienced “a few connection issues or speed issues.”

“I usually experience [issues] in more crowded areas of campus, as opposed to when I’m in my dorm,” he said.

UK has a record class of freshmen this year of more than 6,000 students, president Eli Capilouto said in his weekly email. Along with approximately 37,500 other students and faculty members, this could begin to explain the difficulties with Wi-Fi.

“[It’s] a little inconsistent,” freshman Owen Manning said. “Sometimes it will drop you.”

Additionally, according to UK’s Information Technology (IT) website, the university updated its eduroam certificate over the summer, meaning that anyone who was added to the Wi-Fi prior to July 6, 2022, will have to verify the new certificate otherwise will experience troubles.

“The only people that may still be encountering issues are devices that used to be connected to eduroam, and their first time they come back to campus and need to re-enroll into eduroam,” Chris Larmour, IS Technical Support Specialist II for College of Communication and Information, said.

Larmour said that the matter has otherwise been resolved, and under the Wi-Fi tab located on the IT website there are steps on how to reconnect on different devices.

UK calls itself a smart campus, and provides iPads to all first-time undergraduate students. Without Wi-Fi and plenty of courses utilizing online classwork, the iPads cannot fulfill their intended use.

In order to aid faculty and students and prevent further connection problems, UK provides a student tech help desk located in the William T. Young Library basement.

Senior Joey Hurley, a computer science major, is a student worker at the tech help desk.

“The majority of people are trying to get their Wi-Fi fixed. Like nine out of 10 people,” he said. “There’s usually a few things we’ll go through. Maybe sometimes they just forget their password, or there’s a certificate we need to go through and delete.”

Tech help kiosks can be found on the second level of the Gatton Student Center and in the basement of William T. Young Library. Online resources can also be found on the UK Wi-Fi help website and tech help website.