Internet Access: From Exception To Expectation

Greetings from SIGGRAPH in sunny San Diego. Another year, another awesome show; I arrived late Saturday afternoon and am scheduled to be here through Thursday afternoon, so expect regular (or at least semi-regular) reports over the next few days.

Laptops are everywhere here; it’s rare to not see one attached to a human being. Wi-Fi coverage is equally robust, although the Internet connectivity supposedly delivered by it is hit-or-miss; due to the ‘laptop-everywhere’ factor, the access points and router(s) behind them seem to be frequently overloaded. At least I’m able to reliably snag a DHCP assignment; I’m reminded of CES back in January where (the following is my diagnosis guess) routers both in the press room and on the show floor were configured with inappropriately long DHCP assignment retention times. As a result, the routers’ available DHCP assignment slots got rapidly used up, resulting in lots of frustrated folks unable to get online. The look on the press room IT person’s face when, after I suggested multiple times over a day and a half that he simply cycle router power every hour or so, he finally took my suggestion and the network immediately came up….was priceless. He didn’t have access to the router admin username/password combo, which would seem to be a prerequisite to call oneself an IT person and would have enabled him to alter the DHCP timeout setting, but I digress….

At least I have some connectivity today. Saturday and yesterday I attended Graphics Hardware 2007, held in the Hilton hotel across the street from the San Diego Convention Center. No Wi-Fi there, and lots of perpetually desperate-looking attendees as a result. C’mon, folks, it was the weekend….again I digress….fortunately, I had my Verizon EV-DO PC Card with me, and was able to jump online on an as-needed basis via this alternative scheme. I’m again reminded of a past conference, this one the Society of Information Display show held a bit over 2 months ago. At the SID Business Conference, held at the outskirts of the Convention Center, there was no Wi-Fi and, for that matter, no GSM coverage (fortunately, Sprint’s CDMA signals came through this time). I couldn’t believe that I was in the heart of Long Beach’s tourist nexus, next door to the Aquarium and within sight of the Queen Mary, and I couldn’t get an AT&T or T-Mobile dialtone. Within the Convention Center’s main building, Wi-Fi service was available, but for a price….one that, judging from all the grumbling I heard over the several days I was there, most folks found egregious.

I’ve got plenty to say, perhaps even in the near future, about whether this constantly-connected behaviour is good, bad, or bits of both to the human psyche. For now, though, I’ll just note that in my humble opinion, and in a surprisingly short amount of time (no more than 2-3 years), robust Internet access at trade shows has transformed from a special treat to an assumption, and the tolerated cost (or if you prefer, the perceived value) of that access has evaporated. Readers, have you noticed the same thing?

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go check my email….