We Can Have Ethernet

To the Editor:

Since I started here at YU this past September, I have seen numerous articles in The Commentator dealing with Yeshiva University's focusing its resources on public relations and not on its students. Unfortunately, as many articles as have been written do not seem to be enough. Being a computer systems analyst in my free time, my biggest concern and complaint is the computing resources (or lack thereof) that the University offers.

When I was a senior in high school, back in 1997, I visited a friend of mine at Brandeis University. His dorm room, like every other one on the campus, had a 10 megabit per second Ethernet connection to the school's network, which had an extremely fast connection to the internet backbone. Brandeis' connection to the internet was never slow; I recall connecting to web sites and downloading files at 20k per second during peak usage hours. From the computer centers, file transfers between machines on the local network and the internet were amazingly quick. There were Iomega Zip drives at many of the machines as well as color printers and scanners available for the students' use. Furthermore, Brandeis' computer centers offered Windows 95, Windows NT, and Mac workstations and were open 24 hours a day.

Ever since YU was ranked the 42nd best college by US News and World Report, Yeshiva Review, Yeshiva University Today, and just about every other University-run publication have been priding themselves on this ranking. The question is if YU has any intentions of trying to live up to its ranking or not. I spoke with individuals from the University's MIS department about upgrading the school's internet connection and expanding the network to the dormitories, and was told that once Belfer and Furst Halls are completely wired, then plans will start for the dormitories. With the way things run around here, that probably means another three years until the work is completed. One positive answer that I have received is that there are already plans to upgrade the university's internet access bandwidth from the current T1 line which is shared among YU, AECOM, and Stern. The upgrade would hopefully bring the YU computer labs up to par with the 33.6k modem I have in my dorm room.

All this having been said, my concern is as follows: From what I hear (and I consider my sources pretty accurate), YU is one of the, dare I say it, richest schools in the country. We are (supposedly) among the top 50 colleges in the nation. What is the administration waiting for? Enough of the "We're working on the plans" excuses. I have worked with wiring technicians and set up networks before. If funds are laid out and a plan is designed and executed, a better computer network can actually be a reality! This is not something that will take years to put into effect. Believe it or not, it is physically possible to have the network up and running by the Fall '99 semester!

But until all the barriers are torn down and the YU computer network is brought up to date (or even within a few years of what it should be), I'll rely on my trusty old 33.6 modem to serve my needs.

Morris Tabush