By: Kanisha Fowler
There was an internet outage at Gardner-Webb University from 11 a.m. on January 20, to about 5 p.m. on January 21. There was an issue with the service provider GWU was previously using, RST. When dealing with RST, President Bonner said there was no returned communication from them. They would not return phone calls and were absent from their office.
GWU’s campus was restored service 30 hours later, when they switched their Internet service provider to Time Warner Cable. The new services with Time Warner Cable are not as fast as the prior services. Time Warner Cable uses copper wires, while RST uses fiber optics.
The issue with RST began when a cord was cut in the Charlotte area. The outage had a big effect on students, faculty and staff. WebbConnect, Blackboard and the Gardner-Webb website was inaccessible; three sites that students and faculty use on a daily basis. Some teachers had to improvise when teaching, while teachers in the Graduate Program had to cancel and reschedule class due to their dependency on the Internet.
Since the internet has been restored, GWU has been constantly working with Time Warner Cable to increase the connection speeed.