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Friday, November 18, 2022

Complex Systems


Excerpt from first email dated Sept. 27:

There is currently an issue with UCLA’s wireless network that is impacting the entire UCLA campus. Central Campus IT is aware of the issue and is working toward a resolution. More information will be provided as soon as it becomes available.

Excerpt from second email dated Sept. 28:

UCLA Central Campus IT is still working with engineers to identify and resolve the intermittent connectivity issues with the campus wireless network. More information will be provided as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience.

Excerpt from third email dated Sept. 29:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

eduroam IP address shortage

Members of the UCLA community reported that they were unable to connect to the eduroam network. Network Services identified that the eduroam IP address space was reaching capacity. We have expanded the IP address space to resolve this issue.

MyUCLA access on the campus residential network (i.e. The Hill)

Members of the campus residential community reported that the UCLA_WEB or UCLA_WIFI networks were experiencing difficulty when loading ucla.edu websites. A resolution has been applied and UCLA_WEB and UCLA_WIFI networks should now be able to access all ucla.edu websites.

Intermittent campus wireless network connectivity

Members of the UCLA community reported an issue on the campus wireless network where users are able to successfully connect to the wireless network and appear as connected on their device, but after a period of time websites will stop loading. The outage period has been observed as three to four minutes but can sometimes be longer. IT Services is currently testing the network to identify the root cause and resolve this issue.

Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services.

Excerpt from fourth email dated Sept. 30:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

Members of the UCLA community reported an issue on the campus wireless network where users are able to successfully connect to the wireless network and appear as connected on their device, but after a period of time websites will stop loading. The outage period has been observed as three to four minutes but can sometimes be longer. Our wireless network manufacturer, Aruba, has confirmed the current issue is limited to Apple devices with the M1 processor, and there are currently no workarounds from the network side. Aruba is working with Apple toward a resolution and will continue to be involved in active troubleshooting until this issue is resolved. IT Services is also actively working to determine workarounds or mitigation measures that can be implemented.

Based on our systems logs, we can estimate that as many as 10% of campus wireless users are impacted; however, the issue remains intermittent for those users. 

Excerpt from fifth email dated Oct. 5:

Updates from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Apple Wireless Connectivity

Following our daily call with Apple and Aruba, Apple is continuing to review logs that have been provided to them. They will also be sending an engineer to campus on Thursday to collect data to distribute to Apple engineering. Apple has informed us we should have a response from them within 24 hours. Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form. 

Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form.

Excerpt from sixth email dated Oct. 10:

Update from UCLA Central Campus IT:

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

We would like to report a potential workaround to the connectivity issues. Initial testing with Bluetooth disabled seems to have relieved the wireless connectivity issue. We also noticed an increase in bandwidth with the Bluetooth radio disabled. ITS is continuing to test this but is recommending disabling Bluetooth as a workaround until a permanent solution is available.

Thank you for your patience as IT Services works to resolve these issues. Please report current campus wireless network issues (specifically date/time of outage, building/room, and the time of the class e.g. 11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.) to IT Services using the Wireless Network Issues Form.

Excerpt from seventh email dated Nov. 17:

Thank you for your patience. Below is a summary from UCLA Central Campus IT.

Intermittent Campus Wireless Network Connectivity

Apple has confirmed that the problem is on their end.  They're working on developing a fix to push into the next code release for Ventura (13.1).

Apple has had several engineers on campus over the last few weeks testing different firmware builds / beta releases side-by-side with vanilla 13.0 as a baseline.

Apple has not shared any detailed information about the problem to date.  Engineers we've been in direct contact with have been forthcoming about what they know.  It's not clear if Apple will share root cause information or not.

Apple has pushed what they believe is a fix into one of the 13.1 beta releases (beta 2,  22C5044e) and has had positive results testing that release on campus.  Our testing shows overall performance improvements, but some testers have reported that there are still occasionally dropouts.

Until Apple has provided a permanent resolution for the issue, IT Services recommends disabling Bluetooth and set Airdrop to “Allow me to be discovered by: No One”.

While we await more emails, here is an excerpt from our own blog post entitled "Unconnected" and dated Oct. 5, early in the campus IT issue:

Blog readers will know that yours truly has grumbled from time to time about how well emergency services will work should, say, the Big One occur. UCLA has been converting its telephone service from landline to VoIP, a service that depends on the internet. The notion that internet will be available in the face of widespread power failures and other disruptions is far-fetched, to say the least.

Frontier, the company that provides landline and VoIP service recently sent out an email with this message:

VoIP customers need to know

Your Frontier VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone service, including 911 service will not function without electrical or battery backup power. If there is a power outage, you might not be able to make calls and you should make sure that you have a functioning battery backup for the Residential Gateway (RG) or the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) or an alternate means of calling 911.

IT services may insist that battery backup is available. But the internet is a complicated system that depends on more than equipment under campus control.

UCLA at one time had a low-powered AM radio station which could have provided news in a major emergency to the campus and Westwood area. Note that almost all cars have battery-operated radios that can tune to the AM band. So, even folks who don't have a radio at home may well have access to a car radio. Apparently, that service has been discontinued.

The bottom line here is that the more complex the technology, the more likely it is to experience problems and the less likely it is to function in an emergency. 

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