Comments on: Why conference Wi-Fi sucks and how to improve it

By: Meeting Fairy

Meeting Fairy — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:03:54 +0000

Very good point on wifi access. Now, this is not going to turn around quickly.
Architecture issues: A lot of the convention centers were built as fortresses, so now wifi access points are difficult to execute.
Heavy investment: For a trade center, the wifi infrastructure alone can run from 500K to a lot more than that – not inexpensive technology.
When talking to the infrastructure managers that try to keep the capital costs down while maintaining competitiveness, this is one of the wicked issues.
Security: The other issue to consider is security of the wifi network. Everyone expects open access – with all the manageability complexity of the firewall and scanning.

By: NY Times Biffs It on Wi-Fi Conference Overload

NY Times Biffs It on Wi-Fi Conference Overload — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 17:25:47 +0000

[...] be able to learn from this, either in setting expectations or improving networks. (Please also read MuniWireless’s post from a year ago on this topic, which includes an interview with Tim Požar about conference Wi-Fi. Tim was the [...]

By: Matthew Kramer

Matthew Kramer — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 10:35:32 +0000

This is a good article with some good questions. In my opinion a lot of hotels still have the belief that WiFi is for laptops and PDAs. I have been to conferences organised by government agencies and the WiFi is worse than a busy cafe.
‘Why do most conference organizers fail to provide good Wi-Fi? Ignorance? Cheapness? Both?’ exactly right. Too many hotels take the novice approach and expect that it will work.

@Craig I totally agree eventually, people will start taking WiFi seriously and we will see a change, but for a lot of hotels it’s just another expense that their just not willing to fork out for. VOIP will be welcomed especially when the cost of calling internationally is so expensive.

By: Craig Newman

Craig Newman — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 04:52:09 +0000

Awesome topic.

I am cautiously optomistic as more and more Event locations and Hotel chains will start to use WiFi VOIP based solutions….hence service will improve…WiFi VOIP of course demands better WiFi deployments…that is planned ones….”spray and pray” installers will be left in the dust.

I am seeing a rise in Push to Talk applications over WiFi Voip. Check out Motorola’s recent TEAM phone announcements to get more details on this.

Of course the fat pipe into the building is the biggest financial issue. Several WISP’s specialize in this market for events. They usually can get you a fat pipe with 3 days notice. Try http://www.broadbandreports.com to find one in your neck of the woods.

…but to get hotels and conference centers to step up permenantly is whole other issue.

My guess is in 5yrs we’ll see this issue resolved…until then we will all suffer!

I have had one tip from a friendly traveler in the US that may be of use. Use the Clearwire/Sprint 4G WiMax dongle for laptops. It’s a new network with not a lot of saturation on it….yet!

By: Carl Tarin

Carl Tarin — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 05:56:57 +0000

I have been to many conferences and the WiFi is normally quite bad, they do not seem to know how to handle Tech conferences.

One exception this year was the world Plone conference in Budapest, at one stage over 400 of us in one room using many different devices and it held up very well for the most part and was seamless in the various meeting rooms.

The difference seems to be the community provided there own wireless network (www.ploneconf2009.org/blog) led by a Plone guy called Wyn Williams instead of hiring a company to do it for them, with tech conferences being full of tech people maybe it is time to start taking the lead and consider doing it for ourselves ?

By: Travis Durick

Travis Durick — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:25:27 +0000

Hello everyone,

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1) Poor Internet connections
2) Poor network equipment and design
3) Poor RF/Wi-Fi management

Our MAX Mobile router gives you a clean and affordable solution to these issues.

I don’t mean to spam your message board, this is really a great solution to the problems with convention center Wi-Fi!

http://www.pepwave.com/products/max-mobile-router/

Travis

By: Evert Bopp

Evert Bopp — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:29:02 +0000

Esme,

Good to see you highlight this.
I have been talking about this for ages now as it is just unacceptable that tech-conferences can’t provide working, affordable wifi.
There’s a good example on how it can be done properly here: http://evertb.wordpress.com/2009/04/21/wifi-at-conferences-part-3/

Evert.

By: Esme Vos

Esme Vos — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:09:58 +0000

Jim,

Do send this article to event organizers. I’m also fed up with lousy WIFi, especially at hotels. In Europe, some hotels even charge 30 EUR per day!

Esme

By: Jim Sutton

Jim Sutton — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:07:53 +0000

I agree completely about WiFi being a major irritant in most conferences and even most hotel stays. I think I’ll PDF this article and mail it to conference organizers as I sign-up for industry events this coming year.

I pick and exclude hotels on the quality of WiFi experience, too.

By: Lindsey Annison

Lindsey Annison — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 20:22:26 +0000

Nice article, thanks Esme. Agreed about Dave’s WTF events. I went to the one in 2005 and the wifi was outstanding, with full streaming video and, ISTR, bike powered wifi being shown off too!

Here in the UK we constantly have this problem (again this week @nextgen09) where venues just don’t get the importance of the backhaul, the telcos don’t get the fact that if they charge that much they won’t get a sale, the organisers don’t get the importance of being able to work during the event, nor the fact that remote participation, backchannels etc will make any event that more memorable, talked about etc – for the right reasons!

When we have dumb, fat pipes with a wireless cloud overlaid to give true WiFi everywhere, we will all, of course, wonder what all the fuss was about.