Let me start with: I pretty much have no clue. but it is ok, because I don't get to spend any money. But I do get to help figure out how to get internet bandwidth to a hotel near Chicago (Crown in Rosemont) for a week in March 08 and figured maybe someone here can help. There are 2 aspects to this: 1. bandwidth for PyCon, and no one else. This is the easiest, but most costly. (20k ish total) 2. help the Crown upgrade their setup from 3 T1s to a DS3. (the fiber is there.) so they have it for other conventions. more hassle, more money, but less cost to PyCon. Below are some 'details' that a PyCon guy has collected. Anyone here feel this is there line of work? Carl K Highlights from Sean Reifschneider posts: -- begin quote -- 04/02/07 I've gotten a quote from Time Warner, one of the providers we use at our hosting facility. Their price would be $5,543/month with $750 setup for month-to-month DS-3 service. This would be a fully DS-3 running at 45mbps. On top of this, we would probably need to spend a couple of grand on a router to terminate the line. So far, this is the only place I've gotten who is willing to do a month-to-month DS-3, this pricing is quite good *** 4/8/07 Here are my preliminary numbers for networking for 2008 and 2009: 45mbps DS-3 for 2008: $6,300 45mbps DS-3 for 2009: $6,300 Router to terminate DS-3 for 2008&9: $4600 Additional access points for 2008&9: $2300 Switches, network, and power cables 2008&9: $500 Stands or mounting for APs for 2008&9: $1000 This largely assumes we are going to go with the DS-3, so things may change depending on that. The first year outlay would be around $14,700, second year I would expect to be more like $6,300. **** I did see one price saying $1300/month for a DS-3 with 10mbps, and 130mbps above that. This is burstable service, up to 45mbps, so we would just pay for what we'd use above 10mbps. *** 06/28/07 I believe the cost is something around $2500 for a single month term *** 7/7/07 I've asked Randy of TWTC what needs to be done about getting the contract signed for 2008. I've asked him to work with you, David, about the date and any other information he needs for the contrac -- end quote --