PARENTS: We will be making an announcement tomorrow morning at school, but… if you could also… please be sure the student in your school is aware of the following. It will save lots of questions and frustration when students are unable to connect…
Effective May 9th, to help alleviate congestion on the older Bell network and improve performance of important services like Trillium, IT Services is implementing the following interim measure district-wide until June 30, 2017:
All Schools
- Blocking access to Snapchat, Instagram and Netflix (effective May 9) on both wired and Wi-Fi networks for staff & students in all locations.
- Traffic to these three sites account for approximately 20% of TDSB’s daily network activity.
As the student in your house can attest to, we have been having some difficult times lately with ‘slowness’ and ‘lagging’ on the network. This message from TDSB ServiceIT explains the rationale for the implementation of this interim measure:
- Today, approximately 47% of TDSB schools are using an older, slower network. (Please note that ESA is on the newer, faster Cogeco network.)
- As mobile device usage increases, so do the demands on this network, which was not designed to support this level of activity. Its performance has diminished to the point where tasks in Trillium such as daily attendance, registering students, generating & printing report cards and submitting information to the Ministry have become almost impossible to complete.
- This interim measure is intended to assist all schools in completing their required, operational tasks while minimizing the impact on teaching & learning.
- A permanent solution to these performance issues is being addressed through an agreement with Bell that will provide all TDSB schools with a newer and faster network. This work will begin in late June 2017 and continue through the summer and the 2017-18 school year. We anticipate an improvement for September that will no longer require these interim measures.