[78attendees] Lessons we can take from the Internet connectivity fiasco in Maastricht...

[Ted Lemon <[e-mail]>]

A while back we were talking about getting a 3G service kiosk set up at future IETF meetings, and I thought it seemed like a slightly unreasonable, yet desirable, request.   I'd like to up that to "pretty important."

Why?   I have wasted a surprising amount of time at this IETF trying to get working Internet in my hotel room.   Since I'm not at the NH, getting the folks in the NOC to do it wasn't an option, although I nevertheless applaud their valiant and apparently successful efforts.

Because this IETF was not near a city center with shops that sell 3G cards, it was at least an hour excursion to go to such a shop, sometimes two, depending on how the buses were running.   I wound up doing this four times during this visit.   It had to be during prime time - 8am to 6pm - because shops don't keep late hours here (nor do I blame them).   And at the end of it, because I do not live in the netherlands, and do not have the ability to receive SMS messages at a Netherlands number, the free offers didn't work, I spent hours on the phone with T-mobile, and after buying two SIM cards, one from Vodaphone and one from T-mobile, wound up with one disabled SIM card (Vodaphone) and one SIM card with a starting balance of 2.50 Euro.   I can't add credit to the T-mobile card because my credit card isn't accepted because I can't put a U.S. address on my T-mobile account.   Total cost so far: 25 Euro.

I don't know how many other people went down this path.   I don't know how many were successful, and how many failed, like I did.   But it was a huge waste of time.   Having a cell phone provider that's on board to provide a bunch of SIMs to needy IETFers would have worked.   The do-it-yourself solution really didn't.

It's easy to say "well, Internet service in the hotel ought to work," but we have a lot of experience with that.   It never does, unless we run it.   IETFers kill hotel networks dead.   It's something we should just accept.

So while I realize that it's yet another annoying request from yet another whiny IETF attendee, I think it would actually save a lot of IETF meeting-person-hours if this could become a checklist item for future IETFS: not "are 3G cards available locally," but "can we get a 3G provider to commit to providing 3G cards to IETFers that don't require local credentials to work, and that can be had at the venue?"   I think it would be fine to set up a prepay, pre order system, as long as the deal is understood up front.   And of course in countries like India where prepaid cards can't be sold to foreigners, or in countries where the 3G provider wants $1/kilobyte, it's not going to be practical.   But it would have worked a treat here.