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 
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