{"id":2224,"date":"2016-09-15T10:50:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T16:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/newsroom16\/?p=228"},"modified":"2021-06-22T18:36:06","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T22:36:06","slug":"ona16-wi-fi-access-a-bit-dodgy-at-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2016\/09\/15\/ona16-wi-fi-access-a-bit-dodgy-at-first\/","title":{"rendered":"ONA16 Wi-Fi access a bit ‘dodgy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

For digital journalists, \u00a0a strong Internet connection is a must have. But h<\/span>istorically, the crush of digital activity that marks the start of an ONA conference and its high-profile events has affected Wi-Fi access, sometimes bringing the system to its knees.<\/p>\n

“There’s a\u00a0lot of challenges. These are the most power hungry users, and there are a bunch of them in a very small area,” said Casey Collins, chief executive officer of C3-Wireless, which is handling Wi-Fi needs for ONA16.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning,\u00a0as the\u00a0conference got into full swing, the Wi-Fi reception was hit or miss for some attendees.<\/p>\n

During the jammed-packed opening keynote speech, \u201cFireside Chat with <\/span>Facebook\u2019s Fidji Simo<\/span><\/a>,\u201d some reported issues with using the main ONA network to get on the web.\u00a0<\/span>Tiereny O\u2019Dea, with <\/span>USC\u2019s Spatial Sciences Institute<\/span><\/a>, said her cellphone was having connectivity issues during the keynote while \u00a0trying to get onto Facebook and Slack. But she wasn\u2019t fazed by it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been going to <\/span>SXSW <\/span><\/a>for a dozen years,\u201d she said, referring to an interactive media, film and music festival and conference. \u201cThings like this, it\u2019s always what happens.\u201d <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Shana Lynch, with Stanford University, said the connection was \u201c a little dodgy in spots,\u201d and she had trouble reloading her Twitter feed to keep up with \u201call the great tweets coming up from journalists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how you get this many journalists in one place and have great enough Wi-Fi to service us all. So, good luck on that challenge,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

This year<\/span>\u00a0C3-Wireless<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0is learning from the challenges it\u00a0faced last year at ONA15\u00a0through improving traffic shape, according to Craig Mayo, C3-Wireless\u2019s vice president of sales and marketing.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf Twitter is something that ONA wants people to be doing, then we put Twitter at the top of the list, the priority list, in terms of things. If an iOS update is something they don\u2019t want people to be doing, then that goes at the bottom of the list,\u201d Mayo said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout the conference, Mayo said, C3 will be monitoring the conference\u2019s web traffic to detect when the network is being overloaded to make adjustments.<\/span><\/p>\n

C3 Wireless created\u00a0separate wireless networks, a 5-gigahertz and 2.4-gigahertz one, and attendees were being told during registration to sign up for the faster 5-gigahertz network called ONA16_Brightspot, according to Mayo. The 2.4-gigahertz network is called ONA16_24. C3 got the idea to have two networks because\u00a0some attendees at last year’s ONA could not access the 5-gigahertz network because they had\u00a0older phones.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe drive everybody through registration to the 5-gigahertz network, and it\u2019s the only one we publicize. So, anyone who has a 5-gigahertz device will see that network first on the list,\u201d Mayo said.<\/span><\/p>\n

C3 also brought a bigger router with twice the bandwidth than the company had at ONA last year, according to Collins. Access points, or Wi-Fi routers, are also mounted on walls throughout the Hyatt based on density and the hotel\u2019s floor plans, Mayo said. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Having serious connectivity problems? Let the C3-Wireless staff know at their table on the third floor near the elevators. \u00a0And \u00a0<\/span>email Lauren Booker<\/span><\/a> or tweet <\/span>@ONANewsroom<\/span><\/a> so we can stay on top of it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For digital journalists, \u00a0a strong Internet connection is a must have. But historically, the crush of digital activity that marks the start of an ONA conference and its high-profile events…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10498,"featured_media":2312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[480],"tags":[1267],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conference","8":"tag-ona16"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2016\/09\/IMG_1759-2-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5Q1c-zS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10498"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4333,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/4333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}