Why our WiFi worked…

Written on 21st April 2009                                                                                                              7 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

Heat Map of Wi-Fi strength

People expect a wireless network and connectivity at a web conference. And they expect it to work too. unfortunately it usually doesn’t. Every edition of The Next Web Conference suffered from some problems. This year, it was almost perfect.

It was so perfect that I publicly offered to make the Wi-Fi work at leWeb in paris next year. It famously didn’t work last year even though Loïc reportedly spent over 100.000 Euros on it. We spent a little more than 5.000 so I offered to provide working Wi-Fi for 50.000 in Paris.

This is what the setup looked like last week:

• We provided almost 50 workplaces with fixed ethernet and power connections. We also provided ethernet cables for everyone to use. This means that the heaviest users switched to cable.
• Average number of simultaneous WiFi users was an average 130 (all day) with peaks of more than 150 users.
• WiFi limits were set at 10Mbps down and 5Mbps up – no limits on fixed ethernet
• Around 50GB of data was transferred over wireless in the main hall
• Wireless was provided with a managed WiFi setup (Ruckus) and 8 APs in the main hall
• Wireless in the nearby rooms was provided with 3 extra APs
• Average signal strength per client was 75%
• Bandwidth usage peaks were at 80Mbps
• There were about 20-30 rogue WiFi devices visible at any given other than our managed WiFi setup (other APs, phones, ad-hoc networks etcetera)

Early in the morning on Thursday the technicians (@eventengineers and @mdbraber!) found a small error in the DHCP settings which they were eager to fix. As they rebooted the system the company handling the Fibre optic cables decided to unplug a bunch of cables to clean things up. It took a while to find out that the DHCP settings were fine and to persuade the Internet provider to reconnect the cables. Fortunately the downtime was short and easily fixed. (more…)

Bandwidth, broadband, conferences, heatmap, leweb, set-up, thenextweb09, tnw, tnw09, Wi-Fi, wifi

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Geek Chic: Wireless Air Activator

Written on 22nd January 2009                                                                                                              2 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

I am kinda obsessive about Wi-Fi. I’d rather not be anywhere where there isn’t a free Wi-Fi signal for me to leach onto. This ‘Wireless Air Activator’ from French design firm ATYPYK gets my attention like a red flag to a bull. Unfortunately the Wave is very lowtech. Just paint on transparent plastic. No chips, circuits and antennas included.

If you want to get my attention (to rob me from my MacBook Pro, wallet and/or iPhone) just get a cute girl to wave this in front of me and I will be completely defenseless…

ATYPYK, fashion, french humor, Wi-Fi, Wireless Air Activator

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Wi-Fi did NOT cause Boeing crash, Gordon Brown did.

Written on 23rd January 2008                                                                                                              0 COMMENTS
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur

A good headline does a lot for an article and sometimes it can be attractive to make things look bigger than they are. Titles like “Did an UFO steal my milk?” just work better than “Milk missing from doorstep”. We all understand that and use it to our advantage. Just like I just did with this article title.

But maybe ZDNet went a bit too far when they titled a post “Did Wi-Fi interference cause Boeing 777 crash?“. A questionable source, Nina Anderson, author of ‘Worse Than Global Warming — Wave Technology’ speculates that “interference from rogue radio frequencies could have influenced the aircraft’s “brain”, causing one or more of its electronically-controlled systems — such as the auto-pilot, auto-throttle and power management — to fail”.

ZDNet explains that “The recent BA038 crash-landing at Heathrow airport may have been caused by interference from wireless networks, which affected the aircraft’s electronically controlled power and automated flight systems.”. In other words: don’t you EVER use Wi-Fi because you might crash a plane!

Gordon Brown

in reality, and explained later in the article, no such thing could happen. All wiring in these aircrafts is heavily shielded against radiation, radio signals and stray currents that might interfere. So there is actually no need to worry about your Wi-Fi usage in airplanes.

Fortunately there is a more interesting conspiracy theory offered in the comments by Joe Ralph:

The plane allegedly flew over or very close to Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s car as it came into the airport. It’s certainly not beyond question that his convoy was using ‘electronic jamming’ equipment (to block remote detonation of roadside bombs etc) and that would be far stronger than any wifi signal.

Now THAT is a juicy developing story!

Boeing 777 Crash, Gordon Brown, Opinion, Wi-Fi

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