Why is setting up event wifi such a pain?

February 6th, 2009
Twestival Brussels

Twestival Brussels

Last week I responded to a request from the BruTwestival team and agreed to sponsor the event Wifi on behalf of Casius.be. I consulted with one of the organisers @gculpin and we decided to order a couple of LinkSys WRT54GL broadband routers (with GNU GPL firmware). Today that hardware got delivered. From a previous life time, I still own a lot of network cable, RJ-45 connectors, crimp tool & cable tester.

What would be the best way to configure these access points?

  • Should I flash these devices with enhanced firmware to deal with typical conference situations?
  • Go for dual channel or limit use to 802.11b?
  • Limit bandwidth per connection?
  • Test tools or cheap devices to simulate 200 simultaneous Wifi connections?

From a branding point of view, this sponsorship is risky business. But without challenges, there is no fun nor glory. Free wifi at conferences has been notorious for failures at tech related events. Leweb08 organiser @loic hired Swisscom for 100.000 EUR to supply Wifi to 1.500 participants (67 EUR/participant). But Swisscom screwed up badly and certainly did not get the positive word of mout it hoped for.

Basic things I know so far:

  • Get a good internet broadband connection to start with (at the Botanique this will be a Skynet ADSL connection, with ‘boosted’ bandwidth for 250 participants).
  • Get enough access points (4 in our case) to cover the conference area. Try not to forget hallways & conference rooms.
  • Put the access point as close as possible to the participants (stronger signal).

Thanks for sharing any reference, experience (setup/config) or advice (firmware version) in the comments below!

P.S. Don’t forget to order your Twestival ticket

Tags: , , , , ,

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Technology, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

« Making of ‘Erasing David’: Tintin looking for some privacy in Brussels
Use the crisis for hiring precious gems to fuel the growth of your SMB or start-up »

5 Responses to “Why is setting up event wifi such a pain?”

  1. Koen Delvaux Says:
    February 6th, 2009 at 5:34 pm

    ADSL for 250 people?

    Trust me, the WiFi setup will not be your bottleneck.

    One configuration tip would be to limit the Wifi to 802.11 B, this way you create less RF interference and less “switching” between B/G, thus stabilising the connections. Also decrease the lease time on the DHCP to avoid running out of addresses.

  2. Koen Delvaux Says:
    February 6th, 2009 at 5:35 pm

    and of course configure the channels as far apart as possible, e.g. 1 / 5 / 7 / 11

  3. Roald Says:
    February 10th, 2009 at 12:50 pm

    Just an idea : devote *one* of the router to a more ‘VIP’ network, for organisers, demoers, etc. in case the others are overwhelmed…

  4. Tom McInerney Says:
    February 16th, 2009 at 3:54 pm

    Hey - if I could be so bold as to make some suggestions

    Should I flash these devices with enhanced firmware to deal with typical conference situations? Yes you can do - the WRT54GL is a classic modders friend lots of firmware out there which will help (make sure it’s not a beta!) You can also source firmwares with a Terms and conditions page which will help create viability for your sponsor

    Go for dual channel or limit use to 802.11b? Duel channel probably better since most users now have G connections. Depending on your user mix you may be better to setup one AP for ‘B’ users only (and keep the others ‘G’) that way those pesky ‘B’ers won’t slow the whole network down

    Limit bandwidth per connection? Probably best unless you are supporting press in which case they will get annoyed if you cap them again a custom firmware may help you out but you could also do it by VLAN

    Test tools or cheap devices to simulate 200 simultaneous Wifi connections? tough one; netdoppler can run a ’simulated’ load and I think is free unfortunately the best thing is to get a couple of clients and set-up a batch script to pull from an FTP or similar

    Other things to beware of: Clients themselves as some laptops have better radios than others.

    Hope that helps

    All the best from @tom_mcinerney

  5. Richard Hughes Says:
    September 14th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    A little late to the discussion but the reason there are so many failures is that so many people think its easy!

    We only install WiFi for events, nothing else.

    There are so many issues surrounding bandwidth, Routers, AP’s and users technology that you will not be prepared for until its too late. I totally agree with the “single broadband for 250 users - NO” comment.

    There is no discussion about load balancing, Quality of Service, security, isolation.

    When you have a conference you employ professionals to prepare the invites, cook the food, provide the AV so why try and install a network on your own - just because it works at home doesn’t mean it will work with 250 users.

    If you want something that works then visit us at http://www.maxwifi.co.uk and let us help you.

Leave a Reply

About Me

Internet entrepreneur. Proud founder of Casius.com, Virtualisers.be, Virtualization.com, Promex.be and 2 sons. Not necessarily in that order. Read more...

Categories

Archives