Brown Wireless Network Experiencing Intermittent Issues

Incident Report for Brown University

Postmortem

What services were affected? For how long?

From approximately 1:30 p.m. on Monday, April 14  to 7 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16, there were widespread intermittent network connectivity issues on campus. 

Who was affected?

The network outage had its most significant impact on wireless devices. The entire on-campus Brown Community was affected in an intermittent and unpredictable fashion.

What happened?

On Monday, April 14, 2025 we received reports of multiple connectivity issues across campus. OIT posted an alert on our Statuspage at 3:18 p.m. We completed an extensive analysis with support from our network equipment vendor and created a plan to replace critical network hardware to resolve this problem. As a part of troubleshooting this issue, the network equipment vendor also recommended a software upgrade to correct known software defects. This upgrade was completed successfully by 6:30 a.m., on Tuesday, April 15. 

To minimize the impact of the hardware replacement on the Brown community, which could result in stopping all Wi-Fi service on campus for up to 30 minutes, we scheduled this work during our early morning maintenance window of 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16. OIT alerted the community about the upcoming outage, via Statuspage on Tuesday, April 15, at 4:32 p.m. 

On Wednesday, April 16, the hardware replacement work was completed by 7 a.m. We conducted initial testing which was successful, and monitored the network performance for the next few hours to ensure stability. We considered the issue resolved at 10:54 a.m.

What is OIT doing about it?

OIT has actively engaged our network equipment vendor and conducted a root cause analysis, which identified hardware limitations that impacted capacity and performance. We replaced the hardware, conducted testing to ensure the issue was fixed, and after 24 hours of monitoring, the services now seem stable. We will continue to monitor and respond to any further problems.

Posted Apr 17, 2025 - 18:59 EDT

Resolved

A fix has been implemented, and we will continue to monitor network performance throughout the day to ensure stability.
Posted Apr 16, 2025 - 10:54 EDT

Update

We continue to experience intermittent Wi-Fi issues across campus. OIT is aware of the issue and has completed an extensive analysis with support from our network equipment vendor. We have created a plan to replace critical network hardware to resolve this problem. This operation may result in stopping all Wi-Fi service on campus for up to 30 minutes. To minimize the impact of this major change on the Brown community, we have scheduled this work during the maintenance window of 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. on Wednesday, April 16.
Posted Apr 15, 2025 - 16:32 EDT

Investigating

We are currently experiencing intermittent issues with the Brown wireless network. OIT is aware of the issue and will be implementing a resolution tomorrow morning, April 15, from 6:00 am to 8:00 am.
Posted Apr 14, 2025 - 15:18 EDT
This incident affected: Network Connectivity and Telecommunications (Wireless network (Brown, Brown-Guest, & Eduroam)).