nanog mailing list archives
Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog
From: Jay Ashworth <jra () baylink com>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:00:59 -0400 (EDT)
----- 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
Current thread:
- Re: Big Temporary Networks, (continued)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks William Herrin (Sep 18)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks Robert Bonomi (Sep 18)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks George Herbert (Sep 18)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks joel jaeggli (Sep 16)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks Niels Bakker (Sep 17)
- Re: Big Temporary Networks joel jaeggli (Sep 20)
- the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jo Rhett (Sep 20)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jay Ashworth (Sep 21)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jo Rhett (Sep 21)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Robert Bonomi (Sep 22)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jay Ashworth (Sep 23)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jimmy Hess (Sep 23)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Joe Hamelin (Sep 23)
- Re: the economies of scale of a Worldcon, and how to make this topic relevant to Nanog Jo Rhett (Sep 24)