Internet on campus down during ITS maintainence

Web activity on campus came to a halt early Wednesday morning, when Internet access stopped working in multiple areas on campus for about an hour and half because of maintainence by Information Technology Services.

“Last night during the regular maintenance window ITS was upgrading the network security system,” said Kevin Durkin, director of communications and marketing for ITS. “During that process, our folks encountered some difficulties when they were installing the patches. They were able to resolve that and now the network is more secure.”

Durkin said that ITS did its maintenance in the early morning to minimize disruption to students, and that such problems were rare.

He said that installing the patches to the system has made the network much more secure, but apologized for any inconvenience to students.

At 12:20 a.m. the ITS website posted: “We are currently experiencing performance issues with internet connectivity on the USC Network. Some users are unable to connect to the Internet via wireless and Ethernet. We are aware of the problem and are working to resolve it as soon as possible.”

The wi-fi and Ethernet connectivity in Fluor and Webb towers, New/North, Birnkrant, Trojan Hall and Marks Hall did not work during this time period.

“I’ve been sitting around doing nothing. One of my assignments is due tomorrow and I have no idea when I’ll be able to finish it,” said Greg Linscheit, a freshman majoring in mechanical engineering.

Samuel Chavarria, a freshman majoring in psychology, said the Internet outage was not the first time access in dorms has been spotty.

“I’ve been writing a paper and I can’t really get the sources I need for specific facts, so I keep just writing in that I need them,” he said. “It’s annoying because this happens far too often for the money we’re paying.”