Conference wifi
20 February, 2007Two of my workmates are currently at the Future of Web Apps conference in London.
Not only have they had to pay for their wifi (which they were using to update a page on our wiki with details of the talks) but the connection is terrible: very slow and keeps dropping – they’ve given up trying to use it, despite having already paid. That’s pretty bad.
Maybe someone should tell the event organisers that the future of web apps probably involves working internet connections?
By the way, the wifi at Apachecon EU 2006 was free, always-on and brilliantly useful.
Comments
John Wilson
20 February, 2007 at 14:36
Fin
20 February, 2007 at 14:47
Ian
20 February, 2007 at 17:43
Phil Wilson
20 February, 2007 at 18:12
Phil Wilson
20 February, 2007 at 18:14
andrew
22 February, 2007 at 12:59
It was nearly as bad at barcamplondon2 at the weekend – BT gave us a voucher for 24hr continuous connection for a 2 day event!
That’s quite shameful, really.
Always best to find out about things properly before criticising. Wifi was planned, as it was last year, but something went wrong at the very last minute with the telco so it didn’t arrive this morning. The wifi equipment is set up but no fat pipe to deliver the web. Ryan (the organiser) is upset and annoyed but powerless to do anything. This leaves the venue’s own BT Openzone which simply isn’t up to the punishment a roomful of webbies can deliver.
My apologies for posting the experiences of the attendees.
It doesn’t matter how it’s gone wrong, or how upset Ryan is; for the paying attendees it’s a shambles.
“Always best to find out about things properly before criticising.”
You realise this is a blog, right?
I was at the conference and overall it was excellent. Great speakers and a good venue.
It’s got to be said though that one thing that you can’t afford to get wrong at a conference for web developers is providing wifi.
The problem is that we were told at the beginning of the day that we had to pay for access. I didn’t know any better so I paid for 2 BT Openzone vouchers. In the middle of the day we were told that it wasn’t up to the job for the number of people attending, unfortunately I had discovered this for myself by this time.
If we had been told about the telco problems at the start of the day I might have stuck with wikipad to take notes.
I understand Ryan was probably trying to sort it out and hoped we would be up and running by lunchtime but I think it would have been better to let everyone know as early as possible.
I feel bad about being so negative as it really was a good conference despite these problems.
I would be interested to know who was supposed to be providing the wifi…….