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Why PyCon 2010's Conference Wi-Fi Didn't Melt Down

Posted by kdawson on from the five-point-two-is-where-it's-at dept.

jafo writes "There's been a lot of teeth gnashing going on recently about broken wireless at conferences. We just wrapped up PyCon 2010, with around 600 (out of 1,000) attendees simultaneously accessing the volunteer-run network, and response has been fairly positive. 2.4GHz (802.11b/g) continues to be problematic, but most users were on 5.2GHz (using 802.11n) and associating at 130mbps, with a 100mbps link to the net (though after the fact we found that 35mbps would have sufficed). My PyCon 2010 wrap-up reveals all the secrets of how we did it, including pretty bandwidth and user graphs."

8 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Typo in model number by madsci1016 · · Score: 3, Informative

    The AP he used was a Netgear WNDAP350. There was a typo in the article.

  2. Nothing to see here, move along by Jurily · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://serverfault.com/questions/72767/why-is-internet-access-and-wifi-always-so-terrible-at-large-tech-conferences

    1. Re:Nothing to see here, move along by Incongruity · · Score: 5, Informative

      Of course, the top answer to the question you link to comes from Sean (Jafo), the same person who authored the story submitted here. Sean's been nothing short of a hero @ PyCon for a number of years now – the one or two times we tried to replace him with a sub-contracted internet solution, it always ended painfully... or, well, more rightly, with Sean coming in and saving the day.

      So, as someone who has worked with Sean on making PyCon happen, I can say, without a doubt, that he really knows how to get it done. My hat's off to him and Tummy.com

    2. Re:Nothing to see here, move along by AMK · · Score: 4, Informative

      For the first year or two, Sean was an unpaid volunteer, and the wireless was an all-volunteer effort. We felt bad about using up all his conference time, so we hired a company to run the network -- they're professionals, so everything should work fine, right? -- and Sean ended up helping them diagnose problems, using up *even more* of his conference time. Now we just pay Sean.

  3. IETF meetings solved this 2 years ago by mbone · · Score: 4, Informative

    IETF meetings are larger (1200+ typically), and basically everyone has an uses a laptop / pda, so they make for a demanding wireless environment. After some really bad experiences, resources were put into this, and the last few years, things have really improved.

    What we have found is that

    - it is necessary to have good gear (not all access points are created equal)
    - To serve a lot of people, lower the power per access point, and put in a lot of them. Raising the power because of poor reception is a mistake.
    - having both 2 GHz and 5 GHz networks really helps.
    - telling attendees how to turn off "ad hoc" mode on their computers really helps.
    - tracking down ill-configured boxes doing bad things on the network really helps.

    Having said that, most recent IETF meeting sponsors have chosen to pay for professional wireless network providers. This is not trivial, and there is no better way to cause a flame war than to have the WLAN melt down.

  4. Re:On units and their prefixes by maxwell+demon · · Score: 2, Informative

    For some, like ä, ß, €, you can just use the HTML entities (ä, ß, €). More esoteric ones like ॐ just won't work.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  5. Re:Test, you idiot by Kizeh · · Score: 2, Informative

    Solid is for horizontal runs (within walls), stranded is for patch cords that will be flexed, such as between a jack and a user's computer. As it's always been.

  6. Re:I want to illustrate "Offtopic" to that mod... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    For fuck's sake, he was offtopic and rambling but you guys on the right need to stop lying about what people are saying.

    He did not say government == good OR business == bad. You completely made that up, and used it as justification for calling the poster an idiot. Outside of politics, this sort of dishonesty is considered disgusting. But in the modern incarnation of the republican party, it's wholly encouraged.

    You Glenn-Beck-listening assholes turn moderate health care regulation into a "government takeover". Anything that could even remotely be labelled progressive or liberal is instantly tarred as socialism. It sucks. You guys just don't care about reality anymore -- you just want everything to fit in your Ayn-Rand-inspired stereotypes.