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