Why venue wifi fails

The room changes when it fills up

A wireless signal is absorbed by people. A hall that is empty at 7am and full at 9am is a different radio environment, and the walkthrough told you about the first one. Test in a busy room if you can, and assume worse than you measured.

Everyone brought three radios

Every attendee carries a phone, most carry a laptop or a watch, and all of them try to join or at least to look. Add exhibitor equipment and it is a crowded airspace competing for the same channels. The problem is rarely bandwidth to the building; it is contention in the room.

Free venue wifi is not built for your demo

Guest wifi is sized for people checking email, and it is often capped, sometimes filtered, and shared with everyone. Anything that must not fail, registration, payment, a live demo, should not depend on it.

What actually works, in order

Roughly in order of how reliable they are:

• A wired drop from the venue's network provider, ordered in advance, for anything critical
• A dedicated wireless network from that provider, rather than the guest wifi
• Cellular hotspots, as a fallback or for a small stand
• An app that works offline and syncs later, tested offline before the day
• Guest wifi, for things that can fail without anyone noticing

Check what you are allowed to bring

Many venues restrict what wireless equipment an exhibitor may operate, because a hall full of private access points is how a network gets ruined for everybody. Read the exhibitor manual before you buy or rent anything that broadcasts, and ask the venue's network provider if you are unsure. Cellular hotspots are usually treated differently from access points, but do not assume it.

Test it the way it will be used

Not one device on an empty morning. Several devices, at the same time, doing the thing they will do, at the hour they will do it. If the demo needs a video to stream, stream it; if the desk syncs every check-in, check twenty people in.

What we can do

We rent cellular hotspots with data, and set up iPads and laptops so they work with whatever network you end up on, including offline where the app allows it. If you tell us how the room will be used, we will tell you which parts we would not trust to venue wifi.