Hotspot Tips

The District is deploying cellular hotspots for staff and families in need of Internet access.

Tips:

• Make sure that only those who need access for District-related purposes are connected to the hotspot. Families should not be using the hotspot for non-District use -- especially during instructional time. 

• While hotspots have great bandwidth in terms of cellular connections, it may not be as good as they're used to from a normal home broadband connection.

• Plug the hotspot into wall power during use. This will ensure the hotspot stays powered on and is performing at maximum bandwidth levels.

• Bandwidth-intensive applications, such as YouTube and Zoom are going to use a lot of bandwidth that may affect other traffic.

• Where possible, the hotspots are configured to use 5 ghz Wi-Fi for maximum performance. If customers are using old devices that support 2.4 ghz only, we can work with them on a case-by-case basis. Typically, I'm going to recommend they check out a District device, all of which should support 5 ghz Wi-Fi.

• If a hotspot is getting poor cellular reception, have the customer move it closer to a window, or to a different part of the building they are in.

• If a customer is getting poor Wi-Fi reception to the hotspot, have the customer move their device closet to the hotspot.

Technical Tips:

• Verizon hotspots are probably going to have the best general coverage in Oregon. There are some Verizon dead spots in certain areas, like portions of the South Eugene hills.

• AT&T hotspots have pretty good general coverage that gets spotty as you head east or west off the I-5 corridor.

• T-Mobile hotspots should be good in town, or along the I-5 corridor.