On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 04:20:28PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
Wifi is a tough problem to solve when money is most definitely an object. With a longer lead time and more people involved in planning, maybe we could figure out some clever infrastructure solutions, even if they require that we pay some random $1K+ bill for a truly open, high-speed connection to cover the whole event.
I know there are local vendors that can probably handle such a need. May just be a matter of the local bid team finding them, and cutting a good deal.
Note: If we're talking about being serious about making sure that our wifi needs are covered, I'd definitely say talk to nirik and his colleague jafo. Jafo has done the wifi for pycon the years I went there (thousands of attendees). One year, pycon hired an outside vendor to handle the wifi but by the end of the conference, jafo had once again taken over because the vendor couldn't provide reliable service. I had a chance to talk to jafo about what he's done this year and it's apparent that he's got a better practical understanding of setting up wifi for a huge number of people than anyone else we're likely to talk to.
I know Tummy isn't local unless we end up in Colorado but perhaps we could hire them to manage our wifi needs or give training on setting up wifi networks for large conventions.
-Toshio