Technology conferences are supposed to have Internet. Most don’t. In fact, audiences are trained to be grateful for even a trickle of bandwidth. Maybe enough to get off a Tweet or two. But uploading photos and videos is something that you do later, after the event is over. Because it can take days.
It’s been a real problem for us over the years. We’ve thrown money at the problem. We’ve tried new vendors and technologies. We’ve prayed. And cursed. I’ve offered vendors a big wet kiss of a post on TechCrunch if they could get it right. They never have.
Last year we had a full day Internet outage at TechCrunch50, and it wasn’t better on day 2. The only good thing about an Internet outage is that most attendees can’t blog or tweet about it, since they can’t get on the Internet.
Giving 2,000 hard core Internet users simultaneous access from a single location is very, very hard. I’ve seen grown men cry when they tried and failed.
This year, though, WOW. There was more Internet at TechCrunch50 than you could shake a stick at. And for that, Mariette Systems gets that big wet kiss I promised.
The team: Ernie Mariette, Cliff Skolnick and Tim Pozar. They came in, brought bandwidth (100 Mbps line-of-sight microwave link from WiLine and 30 Mbps from Telekenex), hooked it into a BSD router and distributed it throughout the building via more than 100 Cisco switches and 28 wifi access points. There were hundreds of ethernet connections (and power strips) at attendee tables. Plus dedicated bandwith to Ustream, the DemoPit area and the main stage. And, overall, lots of very happy attendees.
There were more than 1,200 simultaneous connections at peak points, and bursts of up to 88 Mbps inbound bandwidth usage. But no one was ever cut back. And I noticed multiple people in the audience watching the live Ustream feed on their laptops. Others were watching the US Open livestream. In other words, the audience was totally wasting bandwidth. And it was wonderful.
In fact, I was a little disappointed that the audience failed to make our Internet fail. They tried their best, and were found wanting.
Thanks very much, Mariette Systems. We owe you. And we love you. Keep doing Apple’s WWDC and other huge events, but keep your calendar clear for our conferences, too. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else.
BSD
A big wet kiss is nice, but is this all that they got?
And a big fat paycheck.
Have you tried Aruba Networks? They do huge conferences like this all the time including DefCon.
did you read the post? he just got done telling what a great job this company did. why would he try another company? what gave you the impression he was looking?
“In fact, I was a little disappointed that the audience failed to make our Internet fail. They tried their best, and were found wanting.”
Dateline – September 2010 – News agencies reported today that a record number of hackers sneaked into this year’s TechCrunch50 in response to Michael Arrington’s challenge to crash their Internet. The results were brutal. Attendees popped open their laptops eager to see their video stream of the event, only to find a dramatic chipmunk video playing in a loop in the player. In addition, all of the competing startups were shocked to find their PowerPoint slides replaced with PDF files that explained how to set the admin password on a Cisco router properly while the Hamster Dance song played in the background. As a parting gift all the attendees found their E-mail addresses auto-submitted to the Gerkin School of Pickle Washing’s minute by minute update of their world map of global pickle production, a recurrent mailing that includes a 1 MB attachment that contains a JPEG of the latest map.
Impressive. Congrats to everyone who managed to pull that off. Nice job TechCrunch on making the effort to get it right.
We had some connection issues in the demopit where I was, but once it was connected everything was very smooth, great job guys!
100 Cisco Switches ? WTF.
great job indeed – and many thanks to the team!
Was it so boring that everyone wanted to check their facebook instead? Lunchtime seems to have been the most interesting time.
This is super impressive, no mean feat by any stretch, at such high concentration of geeks normally even the GPRS/EDGE networks fail because the backhaul at towers only supports a ‘reasonable’ number of mobile Internet users. What I don’t get is why did it need a 100 cisco switches.
> why did it need a 100 cisco switches.
I believe almost every seat had a hard-wire internet connection, in addition to wifi.
good work mariette!
Correct. It was truly amazing compared to what passes for Internet access at other conferences and trade shows.
Epic. White paper worthy.
Every other event oriented service provider and solutions provider out there should take note and strive to be like Mariette Systems.
Thanks for the details behind the scenes.
Awesome!
btw, it’s “line-of-SIGHT”
I think is important if yow want be popular…
+1; what would “line of site” mean anyway ?
The switches would be to cover all the wired connections.
All seats in the hall had their own RJ45. I’m pretty sure the demopit and other locations also needed wired connections.
Good job to MS, it’s a very hard thing to pull off, and pull off that well. *tip hat*
Win: Getting a personal shout out on Tech Crunch
Fail: Having Arrington flub your name.
I wasn’t there, but I’d bet some cash money it was Tim Pozar not Pozer that rocked the net.
awesome, I was hoping you would post up something about who did the Internets at TC50! Thanks
It was slightly faster than that sick crazy Internet access you had at your last place. Maybe
Interestingly enough: for those connecting wirelessly in the sessions the wireless network had a few issues – you could get a local connection (wireless) easily, but it seemed to drop the internet connection bit several times on the morning of Day 2.
Even the worst of it was reasonable.
There was only once or twice when it was crawling (on the wireless). Other than that hour or so, it was great.
nice information…
I Think internet is important
the live coverage was awesome as well
Never, ever, have I heard anyone, anywhere boast about how wireless internet access at an event like this worked well. This is a first. I’m not only deeply impressed with Mariette for pulling it off, but also impressed with Mike for saying so. Wish I could have been there!
Hmm.. Very strange that this is such a big problem in the States.
Here we regulary for fun set up a LAN for 300 persons with WiFi, Internet axx and everything else with no problem.
Heck, in Sweden they do 40Gbit internet, 10.000 seats and full WiFi coverage two times a year for 4 days without problems.
you should let le web know about that.
FYI: here’s the Swedish event that had success in having stabile internet connection to thousands of people for many years now: http://www.dreamhack.se/dhw09
28 WiFi antenas + “more than 1,200 simultaneous connections at peak points, and bursts of up to 88 Mbps inbound bandwidth usage”…
The audience is now FRIED!
http://www.yout...h?v=kIbtk0XwNIU
If i’ll go to the next TC50, i’d wear a led cup
Something about the cost? That would be interesting..
Jason indicated in an interview that it was $86,000.
that was incorrect (he has no idea what we paid), and also the various contracts with vendors are confidential.
arrington: making providers careers since 2009. They’ll be the next google now.
That would be “line-of-sight”
Amazing… Good job TC
Heh… Ya.. It be me. For some reason folks misspell my name all the time.
fixed, sorry about that and thanks for kicking ass
Like Jason said “The best way to fix the WiFi is to run it over ethernet”
Service was awesome.
“line of sight”, not line-of-site. It’s called that because you actually need to have visual access between the two antennas.
Skim through the comments. This has been grammar-trolled at least 4 times.
I was watching ustream at the show because I couldn’t see the presentation monitors well enough. I was towards the back of the tables.
It really was an awesome job by TechCrunch and Mariette. Internet is absolutely the right thing to spend big on at a tech conference.
its not about spending big. we’ve done that before. as have others. and it still failed. it’s about finding the right partner.
These things are a lot harder than you think. I’ve worked with many people on these types of projects and there is absolutely no one better than Mariette Systems. Those guys rock!
whopee shit! internet access at an internet seminar. what ever next?
Tim Pozar knows what he is doing. It goes back to the old FidoNet days.
happy birfday