International House residents have been cut off from the Internet for the past three weeks.
The house -- located at 37th and Chestnut streets -- lost its wireless connection nearly a month ago. This weekend, the building lost its hardwired Internet connection in its only computer lab, leaving residents without any options for Internet access. Since the building's free wireless connection was what enticed many of the international students to live there, the lack thereof -- a problem that was only partially remedied Friday -- was a source of frustration for the house's 360 residents.
"We've never had anything like this happen before," Chief Operating Officer Tanya Steinberg said.
According to Steinberg, the problem is being caused by foreign viruses unknowingly carried in the computers of International House residents, which crash the network when hooked up to the system.
The viruses, although unidentified as of yet, attack by taking up all of the bandwidth, preventing other computers from accessing the Internet. International House Information Specialist Aaron Eleazer described the virus as "stealing the bandwidth."
"We've been trying very hard to find a solution to this situation," International House Director of Marketing and Public Relations Elizabeth Lowe said.
In the three weeks since the problem surfaced, International House residents have been sharing the 10-15 computers in the second-floor lab. After the lab computers became infected, residents were forced to use dial-up or cable connections, or to use computers located on their respective college campuses. However, since a cable connection costs $40 a month -- much more than the flat installation rate of $25 for wireless -- and many of the residents' universities are too far from International House for them to access campus computers, residents were not left with many options.
"We're asking our residents to be patient and to trust that their interests are most important to us," Steinberg said.
International House staff had four independent companies look at the situation, but none of them could identify the problem or come up with a solution. Steinberg then had a meeting with a Penn networking official who agreed to lend some of Penn's resources to help fix the problem.
"It was a nerve-wracking experience, because we could not identify what the problem was," Steinberg said.
A $19,000 purchase was made Friday by the house to obtain new devices to restore the system and control the effects of the virus. The purchase includes a new firewall that controls bandwidth and user profiles, allowing house residents and personnel to identify infected computers, and ensuring that everyone receives an equal percentage of the bandwidth. Although the virus cannot be eliminated, with these updates it will be rendered harmless.
"It allows users to get on quicker and will give us a lot more control over the network and who's using it," Eleazer said.
In addition, a new server was ordered for the computer lab that should arrive this week.
However, even with these purchases, the network remains unstable, and some floors and rooms still do not have a wireless connection, according to Engineering senior and second-year International House resident Andrew Apple and Chris Hearsey, a Temple University senior and third-year resident. A more complete installment of devices to stabilize the wireless connection will continue throughout the coming weeks.
Although the International House administration has been working hard to fix the problem and update residents with memos and voicemail, most residents felt uninformed and confused.
"They never told us exactly what was going on," Apple said.
"They haven't been honest with all the residents in the building," Hearsey said. "Each person is given a different answer at different times."
Wireless connection was installed in the building two and a half years ago and was followed by a number of other improvements, including room and building infrastructure renovations and improved facilities. Five additional T1 lines were added to the building before the start of the semester to improve Internet service.
"This place is great when everything is working," Apple said.
Before the building went wireless, residents relied on dial-up and cable connections.
