DNC Day 1 is history and it seems from these and others posts I've read, someone really dropped the ball in setting up the DNC blogger bullpen (Internet connections) properly. For an event this big, the network plan needed to be way better then the "best effort" attention it got. This has forced some bloggers into reactive/Plan B mode.
Hopefully the bloggers watching and going to the RNC will learn from this lack of network/WIFI design/planning and testing. RNC bloggers should demand an enterprise quality network with the proper design, support and resources needed to blog all day successfully from the RNC. If at all possible, make sure the WIFI network is load tested to meet the requirements of bloggers, at all access points, days before the RNC event.
"I had to come home to my dial-up access to get onto my blog.
Permit me to complain for a bit. This morning we were told that we were an important part of the future direction of political interaction. But then we got to the convention site, and the three odd dozen of us were supposed to cram into a space with 12 chairs. At least half of us couldn't access the WiFi network that we had been told had been specially set up for our use so that we could blog. There were no tech people that we could get in contact with.
Half an hour ago, according to an e-mail I just got, they added another access point that might work.
So after a day of frustratingly trying to blog, like I had asked and been asked to do, I'm going to give up for tonight and try to do this again tomorrow."
Ninja Stu knows what's up: "The blogger's wireless space has taken a beating. At one point there were 31 devices associated to one AP. I'm struggling to come up with a solution (already turned up the power and set up another nearby AP to accept connections), but this area is at a weird, nonlogical intersection between subnets. The Verizon guys who laid the drops really weren't paying too much attention to where would be a good place to locate a bunch of drops coming from the same switching closet. So tonight, even though I'm beat like a dog, I'll be up all night trying to find a solution to this problem."
Comment I left for Ninja Stu:
If you had 31 devices on one AP, IMHO I believe the problem is that everyone is trying to get on the same AP and overloading and jamming it on the wireless side. IMHO, you need to get more APs in the area to share the load.
One idea for load balancing might be to try using 3 APs in the same space. The APs would need to be setup as 3 separate and unique/non-overlapping networks(there are 3 channels that are far enough apart to not interfere with each other in the same space/vacinity).
Even though the 3 access points are in the same space/vacinity, because they are named differently and configured to 3 channels that don't overlap, you should be able to load balance by assigning users to an access point/network.
With 31 devices trying to connect today, using the 3 APs would get your load down to 10 devices per AP (which is still high but ok)
Hope that helps. Wish I was there to help you.
