Sunday, March 10, 2002

Wireless blogging from SXSW I never heard of the SXSW (South by Southwest) conferences which deal with film, music and interactive stuff.  SXSW 2002 is going on now in Austin and I was alerted by Dave Winer's Weblog today that several people at the conference are using WiFi to update their Weblogs.  Apparently, at least one person, Cory Doctorow, a science fiction writer and boingboing blogger, plugged in an extra WiFi access point and attendees can get onto the Internet. This indeed shows the power of WiFi.  You don't need to build a cellular network or roll in a relatively expensive portable cell site or pay per minute or per packet.  You just find an Internet connection, plug in a computer with an access point and you've got wireless connectivity.  (Yes, obviously, someone has to pay for the Internet connection.)  In addition to Cory, the WiFi bloggers appear to be Doc Searls and Dori Smith of the Backup Brain (I love that name!) Weblog. Another one:  Wesley Felter of the Hack the Planet Weblog also is using the homegrown WiFi solution to blog SXSW to say how boring the presentations are. Conference speakers beware!  WiFi (and 2.5G cellular if the pricing and speeds are good enough) will be your undoing if you're boring and the audience turns to the Web and ignores you.  It's already happening, as you see. 3:14:05 PM

World's largest WiFi conference implementation CeBIT, the IT/wireless conference and exhibition in Hannover, Germany, is the world's largest conference of any type (I believe).  [I think Comdex/Fall is the largest conference of any type in the U.S.]  CeBIT occurs March 13 - 20.  It is also the location of the largest implementation of WiFi at any conference.  According to a Web page translated into English from German, CeBIT will have about 200 WiFi access points covering 300,000 square meters, including inside most of the exhibit halls. The service is provided by Mobilcom Systems using Cisco equipment.  If I have correctly read the English translation, 802.11 service is free but if you don't have a PC Card you can buy one for 197 Euros (about $171 U.S.).  You enter "mobilcom" as the SSID.  I think a Mobilecom page comes up in your browser and you have to enter a user name and password.  It also seems that WEP will not be enabled Last year almost 850,000 people attended the show.  I believe there will be something like 7,500 exhibit booths this year. CTIA and WiFi As I have been writing in my Weblogs, it appears the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Asssociation will be able to offer free 802.11 access to everyone attending Wireless Data University (I'm a partner in this) and Wireless 2002.  About 300 people are expected at WDU and 40,000 at Wireless 2002. Based on the CeBIT implementation, the CTIA should be able to promote its WiFi installation as the largest for any U.S. conference.  It certainly will be one of largest WiFi installations anywhere, although some major corporations (such as Microsoft) have 802.11 access points all over campus environments. Dale Coffing, the creator of the excellent PocketPC Passion Web site, is going to CeBIT to show off -- guess what? -- PocketPCs!  His Web site has a discussion about CeBIT from a wireless/logistical standpoint.  Dale will be one of the participants in my WiFi roundtable at WDU. 12:25:57 PM

© Copyright 2002 Alan A. Reiter. Last update: 3/10/2002; 12:26:00 PM.