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Regarding the wifi issues, if you're running a tech conference and it has to have great wifi, we're recommending Mariette Systems. I know them through Cliff Sko

Regarding the wifi issues, if you're running a tech conference and it has to have great wifi, we're recommending Mariette Systems. I know them through Cliff Skolnick, who used to be involved in wiring up community wifi networks (and was a founding member of Apache). I think it's amazing that you could get someone with that much experience to wire up your conference. It's much better than the low-level IT guys that normally show up (or worse, the remote phone IT support). Here's their website: http://www.mariette.com/Mariette_Systems.html http://www.mariette.com/Mariette_Systems.html And an article TechCrunch did on them: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/20/techcrunch50-had-internet-and-then-some-mariette-systems-ftw/ http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/20/techcrunch50-had-intern... You'd think this would be a solved problem by now, but judging by the number of conferences that have bad experiences, it is not.

spolsky 17y ago
Mariette Systems solved the problem for TechCrunch by using primarily WIRED internet access, not WiFi, and the cost was absolutely breathtaking. The ServerFault thread that followed that incident about wifi at conferences has become the encyclopedia of how to make it work, so look there if you need a more detailed answer than "spend a lot of money hiring the guy who knows all the secrets." :-) http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-access-and-wi-fi-always-so-terrible-at-large-tech-conferences http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-acces...
- tonystubblebine 17y ago
  Joel, that's interesting. I've seen them do just wifi and they serve two of our cheaper-seeming customers--so I wasn't under that impression. When you say breathtaking, can you put that into context for me? All conference vendors seem to charge breathtaking amounts (I once paid $220 for electricity in order to plug in a monitor for two hours). Is this breathtakingly-high-for-independent-show-organizers or breathtakingly-high-for-even-major-shows? Also, what did you use at BoS? I thought the wireless there was good.
ismarc 17y ago
I'll go ahead and recommend ANY vendor for bringing in a providing WiFi for a conference. If you're doing any sort of tech-heavy conference, you have to assume that the venue's internet traffic will at least double, will be of a different type (more than just light email and web browsing, etc.) and that their infrastructure isn't designed to handle it. When you're dealing with high concentrations of users on WiFi, your first worry isn't IP addresses (and honestly, with 1918 ranges, if you need to worry about IPs, you've got bigger problems), and it isn't available bandwidth. The very first problem is going to simply be client associations with the APs. Each AP can only reasonably manage so many connections, and a high concentrations of users makes it that much more difficult to partition the traffic. A good BS filter will be to add a 0 to the number of people you expect to be in attendance, and ask the company "So what architecture would you use to support this?" If they mention mesh or T1 (unless they start talking about multiple bonded T1s and rattle off numbers), thank them for their time and leave. If they mention wireless uplink (or backhaul), ask what sort of throughput can be expected. If they don't give a hard and fast number (or reasonably small range) thank them for their time and leave (one caveat, if they list rates they've seen in other setups but they vary quite a bit, they're good). The thing is, the problem has been solved, and can be taken care of. But it takes a couple of network engineers and enough planning to pull in a circuit just for the event. And that's assuming all the equipment necessary is on-hand. One month lead time would typically be pushing it if you need to pull in a large circuit or it's an exceptionally large event (1000+ people). Any less lead time than that and it's not the company to blame, because some parts of the setup have external dependencies that the company cannot speed up.

spolsky 17y ago

Mariette Systems solved the problem for TechCrunch by using primarily WIRED internet access, not WiFi, and the cost was absolutely breathtaking. The ServerFault thread that followed that incident about wifi at conferences has become the encyclopedia of how to make it work, so look there if you need a more detailed answer than "spend a lot of money hiring the guy who knows all the secrets." :-) http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-access-and-wi-fi-always-so-terrible-at-large-tech-conferences http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-acces...

tonystubblebine 17y ago
Joel, that's interesting. I've seen them do just wifi and they serve two of our cheaper-seeming customers--so I wasn't under that impression. When you say breathtaking, can you put that into context for me? All conference vendors seem to charge breathtaking amounts (I once paid $220 for electricity in order to plug in a monitor for two hours). Is this breathtakingly-high-for-independent-show-organizers or breathtakingly-high-for-even-major-shows? Also, what did you use at BoS? I thought the wireless there was good.

ismarc 17y ago

I'll go ahead and recommend ANY vendor for bringing in a providing WiFi for a conference. If you're doing any sort of tech-heavy conference, you have to assume that the venue's internet traffic will at least double, will be of a different type (more than just light email and web browsing, etc.) and that their infrastructure isn't designed to handle it. When you're dealing with high concentrations of users on WiFi, your first worry isn't IP addresses (and honestly, with 1918 ranges, if you need to worry about IPs, you've got bigger problems), and it isn't available bandwidth. The very first problem is going to simply be client associations with the APs. Each AP can only reasonably manage so many connections, and a high concentrations of users makes it that much more difficult to partition the traffic. A good BS filter will be to add a 0 to the number of people you expect to be in attendance, and ask the company "So what architecture would you use to support this?" If they mention mesh or T1 (unless they start talking about multiple bonded T1s and rattle off numbers), thank them for their time and leave. If they mention wireless uplink (or backhaul), ask what sort of throughput can be expected. If they don't give a hard and fast number (or reasonably small range) thank them for their time and leave (one caveat, if they list rates they've seen in other setups but they vary quite a bit, they're good). The thing is, the problem has been solved, and can be taken care of. But it takes a couple of network engineers and enough planning to pull in a circuit just for the event. And that's assuming all the equipment necessary is on-hand. One month lead time would typically be pushing it if you need to pull in a large circuit or it's an exceptionally large event (1000+ people). Any less lead time than that and it's not the company to blame, because some parts of the setup have external dependencies that the company cannot speed up.