A hardware failure at Time Warner Telecom, Marquette's Internet service provider, severely limited online connectivity for students on and off campus over a three-day period earlier this week.

College of Arts & Sciences freshman Eric Mansell, an O'Donnell Hall resident, said his Internet problems began Sunday night.

"I couldn't get on," said Mansell, who had to postpone research for a paper. "It's really irritating."

Mansell said he felt disconnected from the outside world and that he couldn't keep in touch with friends and family.

Mansell was still experiencing a slow connection on Monday night, "especially accessing sites outside the Marquette circuit."

According to Kathy Lang, chief information officer of Information Technology Services, Time Warner "had a hardware failure outside of the Marquette infrastructure."

"The incident was compounded as it introduced problems in Marquette's network," Lang said, via e-mail.

Stacy Stadler, community relations manager for Time Warner, said via e-mail that the company was conducting a routine upgrade of its cable plant early Tuesday morning and since then, "all our systems indicate that everything (is) up and running."

"We are not aware of outages after that," she said.

However, Internet connectivity remained slow on Tuesday "due to errors in Marquette's infrastructure caused by the intermittent failure," Lang said.

The slowness problem was eventually resolved by 10 a.m. Wednesday, she said.

Cobeen resident Kristine McGinley, a College of Arts & Sciences freshman, said she experienced problems with the Internet at the John P. Raynor, S.J. Library Monday night.

"It hindered my ability to efficiently write my research paper because I couldn't access Internet sources," she said. "I wanted to yell at the computer."

College of Engineering freshman Laura Vanden Berg, a Straz Tower resident, said she experienced Internet problems beginning Sunday night.

"It was kind of annoying," said Vanden Berg, who said she needed to get on a Web site for a class.

Off-campus students also experienced Internet difficulties.

College of Communication junior Julie Piwowarczyk, who lives off-campus, could not access Marquette-based Web sites from Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon.

"I was annoyed, but I was used to it," Piwowarczyk said. "Internet was always acting up when I was living in the dorms."

Piwowarczyk said she lived in Straz Hall her freshman and sophomore years and experienced Internet problems "once in a while."

"We were used to it," Piwowarczyk said. "We didn't know why it would happen. We would wait for it to come back."

Lang said slow Internet connectivity does not usually happen because Time Warner is a reliable Internet host.

This article was published in The Marquette Tribune on October 13, 2005.,”James A. Molnar”

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