Re: [87attendees] SIM purchase at the IETF (was Re: [87all] IETF 87 Berlin Meeting Review)

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

On 8/19/2013 1:47 PM, George, Wes wrote:
> [WEG] RFC6640 exists as a (hopefully) useful guideline for those locals willing to provide advice, either in a meeting wiki or a standalone website - questions culled straight from the attendees' lists. I'm not sure if IAOC is providing a pointer to this for the host or not, but it is worth noting that the host is in no way required to provide much of this sort of information, and may not be able to do so because they are not actually local to the area


I made a very specific proposal about SIM cards. My intent was to define 
a concrete means for of making it easy for attendees to buy SIM cards 
and to task IETF staff with assuring that.  Especially for a demographic 
like the IETF -- and with this issue's having been raised repeatedly due 
to real challenges in different venues -- convenient SIM card access is 
a reasonable goal to pursue by IETF staff.

In the abstract, this requirement breaks down into convenience of 
access, language, and information.  That is, it needs to be physically 
and transactionally easy for an IETF attendees to get a local SIM card.

If that can be achieved in a venue without having a table at 
Registration for a couple of days, fine.  If the community supplies 
information that resolves the requirement with some pointers, that's 
fine too.  If local vendors have no interest in assisting these 
purchases, that's unfortunate, let's not use that possibility as a 
reason not to pursue the topic; let them make their own business decisions.

The essential point is to task staff with /ensuring/ the capability for 
each event.  Claims that this is somehow an unreasonable burden for the 
staff imply a distorted sense of the scale of the task, as well as 
inviting review of the tasks assigned to the secretariat.

While many/most IETF attendees have extremely well-developed travel 
skills, an organization purporting to be open and inclusive should put 
energy into assisting those will fewer skills.  There are, of course, 
limits to what should or can be done in this regard, but as noted above, 
the issue of SIM cards is both important and a continuing concern.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net