I find this turn of events very ironic in terms of what happened last year at Interaction.
Because N4 had been able to offered general wireless and wired access, we had a number of complaints (mainly pre-con) about the fact that we weren't doing the same - primarily from USians. Many of these focussed on the "general availability of cheap access in the US" and the backwards nature of facilities in the UK.
I think wired lines into the convention centre cost us around £80 each for the week including setup (bear in mind this was an exhibition hall so the lines had to be installed). The Internet lounge area, including hire of the PCs, power, cabling etc, probably came to less than £2000. General Wifi would have been at least 10 times that, if not more - way above our budget.
Given some USians criticism of our approach, it does therefore seem ironic that a major Worldcon the middle of California is suffering exactly the same problem. And it does confirm my suspicion of last year that those people who did complain were not necessarily well informed, but were perhaps extrapolating from a narrower experience at another con (maybe a much smaller one).
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-07-21 11:27 am (UTC)Because N4 had been able to offered general wireless and wired access, we had a number of complaints (mainly pre-con) about the fact that we weren't doing the same - primarily from USians. Many of these focussed on the "general availability of cheap access in the US" and the backwards nature of facilities in the UK.
I think wired lines into the convention centre cost us around £80 each for the week including setup (bear in mind this was an exhibition hall so the lines had to be installed). The Internet lounge area, including hire of the PCs, power, cabling etc, probably came to less than £2000. General Wifi would have been at least 10 times that, if not more - way above our budget.
Given some USians criticism of our approach, it does therefore seem ironic that a major Worldcon the middle of California is suffering exactly the same problem. And it does confirm my suspicion of last year that those people who did complain were not necessarily well informed, but were perhaps extrapolating from a narrower experience at another con (maybe a much smaller one).