Information Update: Inter-island Microwave repair

Greetings all;

This is to keep you informed of the status of the inter-island microwave functionality, following the events of last week.

The Harris-Stratex technician repaired the primary and alternate radios on Saturday which is allowing us to run STX access to UVI services over the microwave. All major alarms on the system have been cleared, however, there is still a minor alarm to be addressed. Although the system has been stabilized, we cannot say how long it will continue to function. We are using both the primary and alternate radios concurrently, to maintain the existing level of operation.

ITS staff has successfully tested the data tunnel which will act as a back-up system, so that in the event of microwave failure, inter-island traffic will traverse over the public Internet. CHOICE has increased our Internet service on STT and FIU has increased out Internet service on St. Croix so that sufficient bandwidth would be available to accommodate necessary VC traffic and related content-sharing in VC rooms.

Additionally, the time-line for replacing the microwave has been moved up. We expect work to begin on this by the second week in April.

Thank you for your patience while we addressed these issues, and for assisting our students in navigating around the temporary set-back. We owe a debt of gratitude to the ITS - ENS staff who worked so diligently with the microwave technicians and who launched the data tunnel as a failover option.

Please contact the Help Desk with any questions or concerns.


Judith V. Rogers, Manager
Learning Resources & Faculty Technology Services