El Camino College’s WiFi networks are set to be renamed Monday, Sept. 9 as part of a project to upgrade wireless internet coverage on campus.

“This is part of a bigger project on the campus, in terms of dealing with the dead spots on campus and trying to upgrade the technology and infrastructure for students,” Vice President of Administrative Services Iris Ingram said.

The current campus WiFi networks, ECCWireless and ecc_staff, was going to be renamed as Warrior1 and Warrior2 on Monday Aug. 26, the first day of the fall 2019 semester, according to an email that was sent out by administration on Thursday, Aug. 22.

“We originally talked about “Warrior1” and “Warrior2,” but then decided that maybe that wasn’t distinct enough in terms of people remembering which is which,” Ingram said.

A second email sent out by administration revealed that the WiFi renaming project would be postponed, and, instead, would be implemented on Monday, Sept. 9.

A third email sent out on Friday, Sept. 6 explained the new WiFi network will be known as “Warriors,” along with a link for those who may need assistance.

“We pushed back the roll out date because we wanted to make sure everything worked seamlessly,” Ingram said.

The delay mostly had to do with district-issued computers and EC administration wanting to make sure that all faculty were present to run tests, Ingram added.

“We decided this was a change we could wait to announce and wait to implement because there is so much going on [on] the first day of school,” Ingram said.

Ingram added that information about the network renaming project could have gotten mixed up with other information students receive during the first week of school, which is another why the renaming project got pushed back.

Signal strength of campus internet will also be improved to accommodate more devices, she said.

“It’s been a long time project,” Ingram said. “It was to extend coverage, bandwidth [and] usability [to make] sure the instructions for getting into the network are the same.”

The WiFi renaming project stems from the need for bandwidth expansion due to the growth in both the student population and the number of devices that students carry.

“What we’re trying to do is regulate the traffic to make sure that the people who need to get on—students, staff and faculty—can get on and stay on,” Ingram said.

Computer science major Fernanda Rincon said campus WiFi is slow in certain buildings.

“I don’t know if changing the name will improve the quality [of the WiFi] or better it,” she said.

Other students said they feel that the campus WiFi works fine.

“It’s pretty good, it always works when I’m at MBA,” undeclared major Dhezerie Hernandez said.

Bryan Calderon, an art major, said he was unaware of the WiFi network renaming project.

“I didn’t know,” Calderon said, “I think we [students] forget to look at our school emails.”