13 Meeting Predictions for
to recognize that basic internet for attendees is becoming as an expected utility as water or lights. SmartCity, the largest internet provid- er for convention centers has started to pro- vide free basic internet access in their public spaces and at a reasonable daily rate for those than need more bandwidth. A number of ho- tels with meeting space provide free access in the lobby and/or guest rooms including Omni, Kimpton, Fairmont, Peninsula, Hyatt Place, Acor, Interstate Hotels, Radisson, Shangri-La, and Aloft. Unfortunately, there are holdouts such as Marriott, Westin, and Hard Rock among others that usually charge for internet access throughout their facilities. Faced with the growing demand for band-
width mentioned previously, my opinion is that a basic, throttled level of Wi-Fi (512kb/ sec) should be provided throughout a meet- ing facility. This is enough to tweet, answer emails, view basic web pages but not fast enough to easily stream video. If you need more, then pay a reasonable rate. More infor- mation on this can be found in this article: Wi-Fi: The Lifeblood of Events - Should It Be Free to Attendees?
6. Event Wi-Fi problems will get worse before getting better. This demand for Wi-Fi at events is grow-
ing by high double-digit numbers each year. Tablet computers, on average, use 400% more bandwidth than other mobile devices and are becoming the fastest adopted tech- nology hardware ever. Attendees have mul- tiple mobile devices and expect the same broadband experience they receive at home and office - even though there may be thou- sands of people trying to access the Wi-Fi sig- nal simultaneously. The recent Dreamforce Conference 2012 in San Francisco had over 10,000 simultaneous Wi-Fi users. The Lon- don Olympics logged more than 1 million Wi-Fi accesses on the BT network during the games. 5,000 attendees at the London Frieze Art Fair consumed more than one terabyte (1
14
2013
thousand billion bytes of data). The good news is that the technology ex-
ists to provide very high density delivery of Wi-Fi. Xirrus provides Wi-Fi arrays that can handle up to 1,792 simultaneous users from a single access point. The bad news is that the equipment and bandwidth is expensive and many meeting venues are lagging far behind in the ability to supply the increasing tsunami of demand. Both meeting planners and venue sales people need to educate themselves and, at times, each other on this very important, but technologically complex, issue. Two articles that can help are: Understanding the Inter- net Landscape at Hotels and Convention Centers -- A Primer for Event Organizers and How to Discuss Your Event’s Wi-Fi Needs - A Primer for Event Organizers. 7. New indoor positioning options will provide better event and exhibition indoor way finding and mapping. Standard GPS does not work indoors.
Standard Wi-Fi triangulation only gets to about a 90 foot (27 meters) accuracy -- not good enough for precise tracking though an exhibit hall, venue or for person-to-person finding at an event. Google Maps released its indoor mapping
API last November. As of last July 2012, more than 10,000 indoor maps are avail- able including airports, museums, shopping centers, and hotels. Companies such as Wi- farer are using similar Wi-Fi fingerprinting technology that works quite accurately in some situations. Two challenges are that this technology is currently only for Android de- vices, leaving iPhone, iPad and other mobile devices out. The other challenge is that it may not be very well suited in the constantly changing environment of an exhibit hall, where this Wi-Fi footprint can change sub- stantially with each new setup and where the hall is packed or empty. Still, precise mapping indoor way finding
Midwest Meetings Guide Book 2013
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