Exhibition Wi-Fi: Best in show

When you go to any exhibition hall, visitors and exhibitors increasingly expect good connectivity. It directly benefits event organisers by enabling attendees to create online buzz about their shows through tweets and other forms of social media, and for them to sell advertising space on Wi-Fi log-in landing pages to sponsors and other interested parties. The need for rock-solid in-venue connectivity is also being driven by the rise of event-specific apps to aid navigation and networking.

However, it can be a struggle for exhibition organisers as they must grapple with their exhibitors’ tendency to set up their own temporary Wi-Fi networks and mobile hotspots. “There’s always going to be some bad neighbour that’s going to be sitting there transmitting at 30dB, and not being aware they’re doing it,” says Martin Lethbridge, senior sales engineer UK & Ireland at WatchGuard Technologies. Most of the time he sees this, it is because “the people that set these up are not Wi-Fi experts, they’ve either just been handed an access point by their IT department or it’s been quickly picked off the shelf and plugged in so that they can try and maximise their internet line, which they’re paying a rather large amount of money for”.