Recently a large portion of the Purdue Residence Network (RESNET) users and those who use Purdue's server to get on the Internet have discovered that they aren't exactly getting their money's worth.

Purdue students who opted to pay a substantial fee — in some cases, a fee of near $170 — for a convenient internet connection have been forced to go to the nearest PUCC lab or library to go online and gather the information needed for classes. It's not that these students are too lazy to go to a lab and download the desired documents. But, if you pay for a service, you should be able to utilize it as often as needed, without the additional time and inconvenience of finding an alternative means.

If you bought something that was unsatisfactory, then you would likely return it. Most students don't want to discontinue their use of RESNET though, as they like the freedom and convenience of having an Internet connection in their dorm rooms and apartments. But they do want it to work.

Several students have said that the typical download time on RESNET has more than doubled and continues to get slower each day.

Who can really say who is to blame? Who cares? It's doubtful that the students want to point fingers and play the blame game. They just want the service they paid for — the service that is supposed to save them time, subsequently allowing them less stress and more time to study.

Those involved with the computing center are undoubtedly working hard to fix the problem.

The real problem is that this should not have happened to begin with.

Those associated with the computing center said that the amount of people trying to use the Internet has increased substantially in the last few months.

It seems odd not to anticipate a high volume of online traffic during the first week of school at an institution that has an enrollment of nearly 38,000 students.

These problems should not only be anticipated, but there should have been preparation to combat them. Even if problems never arose it would've been better to be sure.

The computing center's associate director, Scott Ksander, said the increased Internet traffic actually started in November. Then the problem should have been addressed and a plan should have been made then, not when it became a near serious problem now.

It is certain that computing center personnel are working diligently to fix the slow Internet connection problem. One can only hope that a lesson is learned from this inconvenient incident.

Editorial Board: Keith Thomas, Tom McHenry, Melissa Davis, Laura Pelner