Free Wifi at the Conference? Not!

By Amy Gahran

Earlier I was told that there was going to be free wifi in the conference areas at SEJ2006. Great, I thought. But alas, that was too good to be true. I just talked to Cindy in Convention Services at the Sheraton Burlington, and here's the real deal:

• Hotel room broadband access: $10/day, ethernet connection. Provided by Wayport, whose astoundingly inept and unresponsive customer service I've had the misfortune of wrangling with at other hotels around the U.S. So you'd better hope your room connection works easily off the bat, because if there are any glitches they won't be much help.
• Common area wifi: An additional $10/day. That's right, even if you've already paid for room access. Can you believe that? What a racket! Plus, this is available only in the hotel front lobby and restaurant.
• Conference area wifi: Zip. Nada. Nil. Forget it. No way Jose. This is a huge bummer, since it means live blogging sessions (or instant online in-session fact checking by participants) won't be possible.

So SEJ2006 bloggers -- if you want to blog from the conference and can't get onto the public net terminals, I'm sorry to say you'll have to shell out -- unless some nearby building happens to have an open network, but don't bet on that.

Let's see... for me, I could be paying up to $100 for the access I'll need. Youch!

I've gotta say, wifi obliviousness & gouging is sadly all too common at US hotels and conference centers. It really annoys me...

When -- oh when -- are conference venues & planners going to realize that these days, free wifi in all conference areas is A MUST! Especially if you're hosting media or technology conferences.

Wifi coverage should be free to attendees and include session rooms, common areas, and ballrooms. The connection must be robust and reliable when being accessed simultaneously by many users. Most metro areas (and even many smaller cities) have several companies that you can contract with to set up wifi for your conference for a flat daily rate.

In my opinion, conference planners shouldn't even bother negotiating with hotels that don't offer this kind of wifi service at a reasonable rate, or that don't have an existing relationship with one or more local contract wifi providers.

More and more, the lack of free open wireless in conference areas is just going to frustrate and alienate attendees.

I sure hope SEJ takes this into account in 2007. We'll be at Stanford, after all. Geek Central.

Comments

[Madison Hall]

By Madison Hall

This is certainly going to make it hard to meet all blogging assignments & coverage.

As a graduate student from Michigan State University at the Knight Center for Environmental Journalism, I was counting on free & highly available WI-FI to freely add to the SEJ Blog sessions during the entire conference.

Is it too late to work out a discount/deal with the Sheraton per/room? Or too late to add WI-FI to the general conference area?

[Amy Gahran]

Good questions, Madison. Unfortunately, I don't have the answers. I suggest you ask the conference staff.

There will be wifi in the lobby and restaurant, and in guest rooms -- just not for free.

- Amy Gahran

[Saul Chernos]

Hopefully something will work out at the conference.

It would be good to see SEJ, for coming conference, have a dedicated effort around computers. Is there demand for a computer assisted reporting session? Perhaps a room with a bank of terminals, with internet access, can be arranged via a participating university.

Maybe it's ALSO worth SEJ spending the money on arranging for four or five terminals with high-speed access to be placed in the immediate conference area. This shouldn't exactly be a budget-breaker, and I think its time has clearly come.

- Saul

[Beth Parke]

Hi folks. Yes, it's tough that it's not free wi fi in Burlington and that this came as a surprise... There IS a free high speed kiosk room near the conf sessions (right by registration area.. you can't miss it) so that should help. There are four or five stations. At Stanford it should not be a problem In 2008,in Roanoke, we may have to make some kind of deal, find a way to subsidize it or add to conf fee, I don't know. And I'm told that Madison WI hotel where 2009 events are scheduled offers free WiFi, but I guess we all know that hotels change their tunes on these things pretty easily and they are big on fee-based income. Just remember, room rate here is really quite low.