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Purdue Blocks Access to Streaming Sites Like Hulu and Netflix in Lecture Halls

Purdue Blocks Access to Streaming Sites Like Hulu and Netflix in Lecture Halls

“We’re faced with rapid increases in traffic demands in our biggest classrooms”

This is perfectly reasonable. No one needs to be watching TV shows during a lecture.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Purdue blocks Netflix, Hulu, and other sites from lecture halls

Gone are the days when you could stream an episode of “Game of Thrones” or “Better Call Saul” during a boring lecture at Purdue University.

In August, the Indiana-based university started restricting access to five streaming sites (Netflix, Hulu, Steam, Apple Updates, and iTunes) in four of its largest lecture halls to combat over-streaming. The action comes after administrators discovered that streaming sites were sucking up most of the bandwidth in these locations. Broadband costs have also recently doubled at the school.

During instructional hours, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., students in these areas are blocked from these sites and have to step out of class to stream. If the program shows positive results, the university plans to expand it to other instructional spaces on campus.

Professors reportedly appreciate the increased speed and bandwidth – plus the satisfaction of knowing that it’s more difficult for their students to tune them out.

“We’re faced with rapid increases in traffic demands in our biggest classrooms,” said Gerry McCartney, executive vice president and chief information officer at Purdue. “These are rooms holding typically hundreds of students, and they’re coming into class with multiple devices. When we look to see the sites those devices are going to, there are some sites without academic connection.”

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Comments

Morning Sunshine | September 19, 2018 at 5:56 pm

about time?

OK, reading beyond the headline clarified things. You will not be able to utilize Purdue’s WiFi network to stream Netflix, Hulu, and other sites from lecture halls because they will block access on their campus network. You will however be able to stream using your own bandwidth carried on your own subscription who ever that might be. I thought for a moment that Purdue was going to do what prisons have been unable to do and that is block cellular voice and data communications illegally utilized by prisoners because of some FCC or other agency ruling. It still bugs me that the FCC and whoever cannot work that out.

More than 20 years ago conference rooms were constructed to block the reception of SMS transmissions. That method is legal.

If these students were spending their own money to attend university I bet they would be paying attention.