Kent State Information Services has officially retired the wireless internet option, Flashzone.

Previously, Kent State offered Flashzone and Flashzone-WPA as its two main options for wireless internet on campus. Flashzone was the internet option that brought up a webpage for students to log-in, a step that had to be repeated on every device, each time it was selected.

Flashzone was not technically necessary for the university. It was created because some of the devices students brought to campus were not up-to-date enough to handle Flashzone-WPA.

After talking with students, the Information Services department realized having both of these internet options was confusing and the best way to reduce that confusion was to retire Flashzone.

Along with being more secure than Flashzone, Flashzone-WPA has a better user experience and easier for students to use. They input their credentials once, then stay logged in.

“When we turned off Flashzone, we monitored the Help Desk carefully to check for student’s concerns,” said Jay Frye, director of Kent State’s Service Management.

“Everything in Information Services that we don’t use takes our time away from making things that we do use better for our students, which is our main concern,” Frye said.

Alex Soehnlen is a consumer/university technology reporter for The Kent Stater. Contact her at [email protected].