Students coming back from intersession were left in a state of bewilderment as they finished unpacking and booted up their computers only to find that the Internet did not boot up with them.

The recent ResNet network shutdowns have been met by students with concern and wonder. Will these shutdowns continue? Why are these shutdowns happening? Will Internet access become a rare commodity on campus?

Recent comments from Bob Weir, the vice president of Information Services for NU, suggest that ResNet is up to par on all of its systems and that a 90 percent availability rate is more than adequate.

ResNet staff need to become more aware of the fact that everyday life is depending more and more on Internet access. Relating this to our campus, NU has become more and more dependent on its My NEU Website. Lack of Internet access only hurts students who need to access this system, in particular those students looking for their schedule for the first day of classes.

At the beginning of every quarter we hear the same excuses from ResNet staff: people are excited to get back to school and use the network therefore there is heavy amount of traffic, and that there are always going to be sporadic instances of hackers invading the system.

ResNet officials should recognize that network congestion is not going to go away and will be a continuous problem until they update the current system.

As for the existence of hackers, if a college student can figure out how to get into the network, it should only be reasonable to ask that someone be employed to remedy these break-ins.