----- Original Message -----
From: "Jo Rhett" <jrhett@netconsonance.com>
Those of us who feel Internet access is mission critical carry LTE network devices or make other arrangements. Obviously the growth of smartphones and tablets is starting to change that equation, but at the moment none of the Worldcons have done a very good job of providing useful online interaction so there's no actual use for onsite data related to the conference itself. Obviously I would love to see this change.
And this is pretty much precisely why I'm hammering the nail; there's *lots* of stuff that could -- and properly should -- be technology assisted at the world's largest gathering of science fiction enthusiasts.
Now, if we want to make this topic relevant to Nanog, the operative question is the feasability of a data provider putting good wireless gear near these facilities and selling data access to attendees. For a useful comparison, the 2010 Worldcon in Melbourne had an expensive wifi service in the building that kept falling over. A cell provider across the street put up banners advertising cheap data service, and put people on the sidewalk in from of the convention selling pay as you go SIM cards with data service. They made brisk business. *THIS* is where us network operators can provide good networking service to a large facility, and pretty much kill the expensive data plans operated by the facility.
Assuming you can get close enough -- which won't be geographically practical for ... oh, wait; you're envisioning 3G, not WLAN. Yeah, I suppose that might work... until you consider that I will, personally, be bringing both laptops, my tablet, and my phone, all of which want to talk to the outside world. I would bet that I'm not all *that* unusual in that, at a Worldcon, based on some attendee conversations I've had at Anticipation and the much less well attended NASfic 10, ReConstruction. A lot of this, too, depends on what the concom negotiated with the property about wifi access already.
Instead of building up and tearing down a network for each convention, put an LTE tower near the facility and sell to every group that uses the convention center.
Can I get 12000 sessions on a single LTE tower? That's my benchmark for the moment, in the absence of real numbers. :-) Alas, this property has already just rebuilt it's wifi, I'm told. Course, the con is in 2015, so they may rebuild *again* by then. Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA #natog +1 727 647 1274