After receiving complaints about the television reception from students living in the residence hall at Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC), facilities alerted IT and the equipment causing the problem was replaced.

Leslie Timoney, manager of facilities for McMahon Hall, said that the equipment failure occurred around 12 p.m. on Jan. 20.

Dierdre Dillon, director of customer relations and training at Fordham IT, said that she received only one phone call about the TV quality. She said that she received this call on Jan. 20—the first day of classes this semester. Residential Life was also notified of the problem for the first time on that day, according to Dillon.

Dillon said that the cable service provider responded quickly, and monitored the cable channels to see if there was a problem. She said that they quickly determined that there was in fact a problem, as many of the channels would cut out for five to 10 second intervals every 30-90 minutes. She said they determined that the problem was in the UPSs (uninterruptible power suppliers), and that they were all replaced on Jan. 21. Although some of these units did not seem to be faulty, Dillon said that all were replaced as a matter of caution.

“The reception was pretty terrible last semester,” said Marc Valentin, FCLC ’11 and president of the Residence Hall Association (RHA). “The signal dropped frequently, even when there was no inclement weather. I was in McMahon Hall over winter break, and the reception was still pretty bad,” he said.

As a general matter of concern for the students living in the residence hall, Dillon urged students to report any problems to the IT help desk as soon as they encounter them, because that is the only way that she can begin to fix the problem. She included problems with the television as well as the wireless Internet in this category.

“Unless someone calls and tells us [about a problem], we don’t know it exists,” she said. “So often by the time it comes to us, it’s already a big problem.”

Gregory Palmer, FCLC ’11, said that although the cable quality is improved, he still is experiencing some problems. “The television quality isn’t as bad as last [semester], but there are still times when the television searches for a signal and it interrupts the program you’ve been watching,” Palmer said.

Valentin said so far he has gotten the impression that the reception has improved. “Mostly because I don’t remember the signal dropping during the ‘Jersey Shore’ finale,” he said. “I haven’t had any issues with it in my room for at least two weeks. A couple of residents claimed that they lost a signal once or twice since then, but it wasn’t bad or frequent enough to be a problem.” Valentin said. “It seems like the problem has been fixed for the time being.”