Riding on a MegaBus from Houston to Dallas, we had just passed Huntsville when the wireless network slowed to a crawl. The miles rippled by as we traveled down the highway at the maximum legal speed, but web pages and email seemed to amble aimlessly, taking several minutes to load. The Megabus service agreement for accessing their wifi already warned us that all streaming services (Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc.) are blocked, that the network is a public, unsecured network, and that it is only available “as is.” But the price of a bus ticket is less than a half-tank of gas, and each passenger has an electrical outlet and wireless access, so it is still a pretty good deal.
The slow loading pages made me remember the “old days” in Allen Center around Y2K (2000). At the beginning of a business day, my Rice co-workers and I would login to our wired network computers that were about the size of today’s rolling suitcases. Then we would go make our first pot of coffee for the day while the operating system and default programs like email and our home web pages loaded. By the time we returned to our desks, our computers were awake and ready to begin work. Web pages still took several minutes to open if they included a picture or a lot of content, and email messages to the boss did not necessarily arrive faster than we could walk down the hallway to his or her office.
Almost 15 years later, I am working on a laptop computer that weighs less than a ream of paper while traveling down the highway on a vehicle that allows me to charge my computer and my iPhone and use both of them on a wireless network that works a little slower than the Tier One research network speeds I’ve become accustomed to at Rice. Looking back on the life-changing network and infrastructure disruptions which were eventually accepted as “improvements” by most of the Rice faculty, staff and students over the last decade and a half makes me wonder what the next 15 years of the digital age will bring to the campus — and whether I will be demanding or rejecting the next upheavals that are sure to be part of the coming changes. Either way, it will be an interesting ride. Listen. Isn’t that the driver calling, “All aboard?”
About the author: Carlyn Chatfield began working in the financial aid office at Rice University in April 1999 and now manages communications for the IT division.