| | July 20168CIOReviewIn convention center IT, we welcome folks from all over the globe into the wild, wild west of wireless. Convention centers operate in the same realm as universities, sports venues, and airports relating to consumption of wireless services by transitory users. Delivery of world-class wireless service in these types of facilities is fraught with challenges. What good is the wireless network if, during a video gaming convention with 50,000 enthusiastic attendees sporting two or three devices each, we don't have the bandwidth and infrastructure to deliver? These attendees post video, photos and interact with social media in `real-time' as they share their experiences. During peak hours, we routinely observe wireless throughput in the 750+ Mbs range. User-heavy groups such as this will crush most networks.In the convention center business, we see a variety of devices come through our doors. For example, during an international seafood show last month, we supported the following devices on our wireless network:It is important to note that these represent the devices of users who opted to connect to the free wireless we offer in our facilities only. This group does not include those who elected to stay on their own cellular data plan. In my decade-plus tenure at the helm of the best technology team in the convention industry, we have replaced our wireless infrastructure five times. That is just the external facing Wi-Fi portion of the network! Numerous back-of-house upgrades supporting the 802.11 network have also taken place, including the installation of a 10-gigabyte dark fiber ring around Boston. This ring facilitates access to our Boston-based venues as well as future growth into the surrounding hotel community. Moreover, one of the stops on our fiber ring is a telecom colocation hotel with more than 40 providers. Since there is such a broad spectrum of bandwidth providers in Boston, we buy bandwidth as a commodity. Leveraging IN MY OPINIONBYOD? Of Course You Can!By Steven Snyder, CTO/CIO, Massachusetts Convention Center
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