Constructing a Thorough Wi-Fi Plan for Your Event
For association planners, attendees and partner vendors, the situation posed by Wi-Fi continues to be a bit chaotic. So what might groups do to ensure adequate wireless capacity for their events?
The International Legal Technology Association’s Clay Gibney suggested working together, for starters. “For months leading up to our last event, we appealed to the group’s community spirit to take a pledge to turn off their hotspots so that everyone could enjoy enhanced access to the Internet. It worked! Afterwards, members told us that the quality of their Internet access was better than it had ever been.”
His group has also since incorporated a new protocol into its event planning, devoted to Wi-Fi access. It addresses basic elements and important considerations and might be helpful to associations working on their own upcoming projects, especially those that depend upon convenient access to the Internet with their contracted venue.
From the ILT: a Summary of Needs
The resort or venue should have
• A total bandwidth at least (x) megabits per second (Mbps) for convention center use
• The ability to provide wireless access coverage in all convention/meeting areas
• The capacity/ability to handle (x) users who are tech-savvy and who carry at least one device (sometimes two) and who need to use Wi-Fi
• A strategy in place for providing both 2.4 gigahertz (GHz) and 5 GHz coverage to a large audience
• The expertise to manage and respond to the needs and issues that often arise with providing both wired and wireless Internet service for a large conference
Questions for the Host Resort or Venue
• Who manages the Wi-Fi network equipment at the resort?
• Does your resort employ network engineers who have direct access to configure and monitor all network equipment? Or is there an outside party or contracted service involved?
• Does the resort use permanently installed APs or ad-hoc APs on tripods or something else?
• Given enough advance notice, can the resort put in additional (ad-hoc) wireless access points when we anticipate a larger crowd in a particular area?
• During our event, who do we contact when there’s a technical issue or need?
If you love the story of David and Goliath, there’s no better story unfolding right now than the tale of how one meeting attendee has leveled the big Wi-Fi playing field for everyone who depends upon reliable, fast and inexpensive connections to the Internet. But this is also the saga of how rapidly advancing technologies are overwhelming the abilities of many big corporations—and the federal government—to understand it, much less regulate it properly.
This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. Years ago, during an Apple iPhone rollout staged before a room jam-packed with bloggers, journalists and techies, Steve Jobs was forced to stop his presentation on the new phone’s extraordinary capabilities. The reason: He couldn’t secure an Internet connection. Informed of the problem, he told the audience, “There are 570 portable way station devices in this room. You have two choices: Turn off your Wi-Fi hotspots if you want me to continue this demo; if you don’t, there won’t be any more demo.” Of course, the audience complied.
The incident is emblematic of the challenges that radio-based technologies present to users such as attendees and exhibitors. Clay Gibney, IT director of the International Legal Technology Association in Austin, Texas, admitted that even his group has struggled to provide acceptable Wi-Fi access for its meeting participants, who typically number several thousand.
“Portable Wi-Fi devices are ill-mannered,” Gibney said. “They often use non-standard channel choices, and they can create cross-channel and adjacent-channel interference. The problems are due to limited radio channels and interference.”
Understanding Interference. Interference is the easier of the issues to understand. All devices that use radio waves can be very susceptible to other nearby electrical devices that generate radio waves (including microwave ovens, Bluetooth devices, wireless video cameras, fluorescent lights and cordless phones). This interference from other electrical devices can impede the reception of nearby users. Compounding the problem is device competition. When similar devices use the same radio frequency, they must compete with one another across the same airwaves. That’s what created the mishap with Steve Jobs.
The core problem is that wireless access points (routers) are very limited as to how many devices they can simultaneously manage when it comes to traffic. That is, they can only handle a certain number of devices attempting to “talk” at the same time. And the situation is made even worse when there’s any radio interference in the environment because data ends up being delayed and retransmitted repeatedly.
Gibney offered two examples as another way of understanding the issue of device competition: “Think about two FM radio stations that are side by side on the radio dial, both broadcasting. Sometimes you can hear them both, while at other moments, one of the radio stations has the stronger signal and blasts over the other. It’s a horrible end result,” said Gibney.
“Another analogy would be the CB radios that tractor-trailer drivers still often use. ‘Breaker, breaker, good buddy, can you go to channel nine where there are fewer talkers?’ Unfortunately, with Wi-Fi, there are even fewer channels for devices to talk on than what the classic 40 channel CB radio has.”
With the explosion of smartphones containing hotspots, the problem of interference has grown significantly worse because it means that millions and millions of smartphone users now compete for already crammed airwaves. The result can be a kind of communications aneurysm, in which demand is capable of causing frequent service ruptures.
Adding to the complexity of the issue, a number of third-party vendors of portable Wi-Fi devices are soliciting exhibiting companies with promises of lower costs for wireless service than those supplied by convention center–provided Internet access. Those who accept the offer, while saving money, are only increasing the presence of more devices at a particular event, in turn making it possibly more difficult for all users at the event to connect to the Internet.
Mixed Signals Heading Into the Future. Last year, Marriott’s Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville, Tennessee, was fined $600,000 by the Federal Communications Commission for blocking the Wi-Fi devices of its guests. The government was concerned that Gaylord was intentionally blocking personal hotspots so that it could charge a fee for guests to access its property’s wireless network. In its defense, the hotel stated it was simply trying to protect guests from hackers who could have hijacked the hotel’s system, causing cyber-attacks or identity theft.
This case has been well discussed in the association industry because so many events are held at hotels, convention centers and other venues that charge for and regulate Wi-Fi access. The fact is, most major hotel chains charge guests handsomely for Wi-Fi access; and though many full-service hotels have begun providing their frequent guest-program members with free Wi-Fi access, it’s basic to the point that it can be virtually impossible to access the Internet during peak-demand times.
Mark Haley, president of Smart City Networks, the provider of Internet and telecommunications services to more than 35 convention centers and venues, believes the FCC should issue guidelines to network operators that balance the public interest in “protecting against carte blanche blocking with the need for reasonable network management,” Haley said.
“We remain hopeful that the FCC will seek to understand the challenges faced at large venues, such as convention centers, in dealing with ever-increasing device density and interference (and) we look forward to participating in the ongoing discussion about the future of Wi-Fi network management and offering viable solutions to this increasingly significant and complex issue.”
Despite the probability of continuing service challenges, there is reason for hope. The present Wi-Fi system, known as 802.11n, is the second generation of the technology. Without getting too technical, a newer and much faster system called 802.11ac Wave 2 will probably replace it later this year. Not only will it be much faster but it will also operate on a less-crowded radio frequency band. Moreover, down the line, an even faster Wi-Fi system is being planned (802.11ax) but that system isn’t expected to be introduced until around 2019.
What we don’t know, however, is what the additional demand for access will be in the future, given the explosion of mobile device use in recent years.