On Wednesday, students living in North Village were alerted that a new residential internet system will be installed in the next few days. The announcement, sent by Housing and Residence Life, noted that "Furman has partnered with Apogee to provide improved wireless and wired internet service on campus, beginning with North Village."

Apogee provides the current internet service for students through its MyResNet service. Furman students can currently connect up to seven devices, and each device is limited to download speeds of 65 Mbps and upload speeds of 35 Mbps.

The new service, branded Apogee ResNet, markets a limit of ten devices per student and download speeds up to 100 Mbps. Furman students will be upgraded to 70 Mbps download speeds and 40 Mbps upload speeds. The new Apogee ResNet supports signing in with our Furman accounts instead of requiring a new account, and it also supports Eduroam, which means that students will be able to use Wi-Fi at any other school that support Eduroam.

A major benefit of Apogee ResNet over MyResNet is the personal area network (PAN) feature. Residential Wi-Fi networks typically isolate each device on the network, but the PAN feature enables devices to communicate with other devices on the same account. The PAN feature will allow devices such as printers and Chromecasts to work with the residential internet. MyResNet did not support personal area networks.

While official details about the upgrade are currently scarce, a representative for Apogee was able to confirm that complete upgrades to locations usually come with increased internet speeds. The representative also confirmed that the device limit will be upgraded to ten devices and the PAN feature should be enabled after the upgrade is complete.

Devices will not be migrated to the new system because it is separate from the old system. When the upgrade is complete, students will need to activate their account via Furman's Apogee ResNet portal and add all their devices. Apogee is posting instructions on doors after they complete the upgrade.

New access point hardware needs to be installed to support the upgraded internet service. A tentative installation schedule was provided by Apogee: