Houses Experience Internet Downtime

Some Mather and Winthrop House residents experienced problematic Internet access over Harvard-Yale weekend, according to students in both dorms.

The Internet was down for nearly twenty-four hours in parts of Mather Tower from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon. Service in Winthrop’s Gore Hall was out for most of Saturday, and was interrupted again yesterday. Eleven Riverview dorms in Winthrop also had spotty Internet access over the weekend, according to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Computer Services’ Web site.

“The cause of the interruptions in both Mather and Winthrop were hardware failure for network devices in both areas,” Supervisor of Residential Computing for FAS Computer Services Erin Nettifee wrote in an e-mail.

The specific cause of the hardware failure was unknown.

“We have a large network, so devices can fail. We do also have some older network devices, and we are beginning the process of doing a network refresh to address that issue going forward,” Nettifee wrote of the possibility of future Internet access interruptions.

While Winthrop resident Denise Lambert ’07 called the interruption an “outrage,” another Winthrop resident Julian A. Gingold ’07 said, “It’s inconvenient but I can’t fault them for a technical glitch.”

“Harvard does not have an obligation to give us Internet access full-time,” he added.