Rethinking Campus Connectivity

Students' lived experience with technology on campus is markedly different today than at any other time in history. Digital connectivity now plays a foundational role not only in students' curricular success but also in their cocurricular satisfaction as campus residents or campus commuters. According to Boldyn Networks' student connectivity report conducted in the summer of 2024, reliable connectivity is ranked by students as nearly as important as academic rigor and campus safety, with a staggering 84 percent of students living in residence halls believing that reliable internet access is as essential as campus safety and academic quality.^Footnote1

Building a one-size-fits-all solution for a campus is not as easy as rolling out a vanilla plug-and-play network. Each institution has unique environmental factors that inform its network design, unique and specific connectivity needs of its academic programs, and voracious bandwidth appetites from students bringing more and more devices to campus—and then expecting to be able to reliably connect to them at any time and any place while working, playing, or learning.

It's time for campus leaders to rethink their campus connectivity approaches and the factors that must be addressed when designing and building exceptional, future-proof campus connectivity solutions that cater to the rapidly evolving needs of today's college students.

Aligning Expectations with Reality

Boldyn Networks' on-campus usage data indicates that internet use in residence halls is highest between midnight and 6:00 a.m. and lowest between 8:00 a.m. and noon. Although residence-hall usage spikes at night-owl hours are not surprising, institutions typically staff their IT departments during business hours only—from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. These hours might be extended if the department has student employees on staff. With a growing shortage of IT professionals across the board, meeting the midnight to 6:00 a.m. peak student usage needs in residence halls poses a logistical constraint, if not cognitive dissonance, on when support is needed versus when it is available. Because the overnight period is typically the highest stakes time for students (crunch time), responsiveness and sensitivity to students' support and assurance needs are essential.

Working with a managed technology services partner to provide around-the-clock IT support to supplement IT teams is one of the best ways to ensure responsiveness and consistent support for students during times of greatest need. Approximately half of institutions (51 percent) that participated in Boldyn Networks' 2025 IT survey reported that they currently outsource some aspect of IT services and support, and another 24 percent say they have plans to do so.^Footnote2

Adjusting Capacities to Reality

Each year, more students bring more devices to campus with expectations of consistent connectivity. On average, each student brings three or more internet-ready devices to their residence hall, and 99 percent of students expect to be able to connect to at least two devices simultaneously.

Colleges and universities must enhance, monitor, and expand their connectivity capacity to accommodate this growing number of devices. This effort starts with planning and building for ubiquitous connectivity—from bolstering Wi-Fi in residence halls, common areas, and classrooms to installing towers for consistent cell coverage across campus and implementing small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS) in high-density event and arena spaces and energy-efficient buildings with unique outside signaling challenges.

A prime example of how Boldyn Networks for Higher Education has implemented this approach is its collaboration with campus partner Wisconsin Lutheran College. Boldyn implemented a brand-new networking infrastructure, rolling out a more robust Wi-Fi design with faster connection speeds and high-density wireless access points placed strategically throughout the campus to remove dead zones. This implementation was done at rapid scale; Boldyn successfully installed its ResNet (Residential Network Services) network over five weeks—from the start of the engagement to just before students moved in for the fall semester. The academic network soon followed, with a record completion within the first month of classes. Students can now use up to ten devices on their own personal area network (PAN) with no disruption to their connectivity and no risk of compromising the enterprise security of Wisconsin Lutheran's administrative network.

Building for an Emerging Reality

Colleges and universities are so busy catching up that few are adequately equipped to proactively think about building robust networks that will safeguard and future-proof students' connectivity for emerging technologies, much less building out such forward-leaning network infrastructures and capacities.

And, when considering how the proliferation of streaming video already consumes the lion's share of bandwidth in residence halls, thinking about how the continuing proliferation of smart devices and emerging AI-enabled services will affect the consistency of high-quality, reliable, and fast internet service for students is necessary.

Therefore, colleges and universities must optimize and design their networks to support bandwidth-intensive activities—such as streaming, gaming, and virtual meetings—to ensure a seamless and ubiquitous experience for students because their expectations will only continue to rise.

Start by investing in network management tools that will provide real-time insights into existing connectivity issues, usage patterns, and areas of opportunity to enable both swift resolution and insights into ways to improve the as-built network.

Additionally, consider partnering with technology leaders such as Boldyn Networks, who specialize in delivering smart connectivity solutions for higher education, so that institutional staff can better align their time, treasure, and talents with priorities that are most needed on campus and most closely aligned with the overall institutional mission.

It's time to rethink approaches to campus connectivity, align staffing and infrastructure expectations with reality, and start building campus networks that are intrinsically attuned to what students need now and well into the future.

Notes

1. Top of the Class or a Failing Grade? What College Students Really Think About Campus Connectivity: Student Connectivity Report, research report (Boldyn Networks, October 2024). Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.↩
2. Forces Shaping Change and Innovation in Higher Ed: The Future of Higher Ed IT 2025, research report ( Boldyn Networks, December 2024). Jump back to footnote 2 in the text.↩

David Hinson is Campus CIO at Boldyn Networks.