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I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

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Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#161

Post by linsomniac »

undersuit wrote: post #155
gumby wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more so.

Sorry, I meant to try and nicely nudge you into the correct conclusion and you have doubled down. 2006 was before the iPhone. You used the wifi, you didn't tether to your Nokia 6650.

Absolutely!

We went into these hotels telling them "I know you offer WiFi, but we are a tech conference, we're going to be using the WiFi harder than your normal event." They'd all say "It's fine", but they'd quickly learn it wasn't fine.

There wasn't really the option to use the cellular network for data at that time.

We eventually ended up running our own WiFi for quite a few years, because the venues consistently would just end up a smoking crater. The first year in Chicago the venue had this fancy centrally controlled wifi that was supposed to be all smart, but even after a field upgrade because the central CPU couldn't keep up, it was just a disaster.

Ended up going with a bunch of relatively inexpensive APs all set on low RF power, where the venues always wanted to have one or two APs on high power. Basically solved our problems.

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#162

Post by linsomniac »

okeuro49 wrote: post #102
lupusreal wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She didn't need to escalate it because for her personally there was no downside to simply ignoring the matter.

And indeed, would have probably thought that people at a conference would be better being human beings and talking to each other, rather than staring into a laptop screen.

This was the conference where Ka-Ping Ye could be found huddling in the back of the room, and then a few hours later give a presentation on "look what I just did". So, I hear what you're saying, but there is also value in being on your computer in that environment.

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#163

Post by linsomniac »

RecycledEle wrote: post #128
linsomniac wrote: post #27

This reminds me of a conference, attendees were having sporadic problems with accessing the Internet and eventually I was able to capture a trace of the problem: when the main lease network filled up, it started allocating IPs from another block, but with the same gateway. I got a lease for something like 10.1.1.69/24 with a gateway address of 192.168.1.1. I went to the support person and she offered to reset the WiF…

I did tech support for a database conference at the Adams Mark around 2000. That was the biggest fluster cluck I've ever seen. The hotel sabotaged the DSL line that provides Internet access until thousands of dollars in previously undisclosed fees were paid.

PyCon had a conference planning company heavily involved from fairly early on, and that ended up avoiding, to the best of my knowledge, much of that sort of thing. The contracts ended up being fairly well negotiated. But *THAT* process was quite the hair-pulling exercise.

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#164

Post by linsomniac »

Dalewyn wrote: post #150
nulbyte wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why didn't she need to escalate it? I can imagine the hospitality industry would not want the WiFi sporadically going down for their guests; that's not a very hospitable experience.

Path of least resistance. She offered a solution, customer refused it. She had no obligation to act further (assuming no such requirements set by company policy).

Except that our contract with the venue included that they would provide Internet access, so we were collecting these problem reports and in several cases money was withheld due to poor performance.

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#165

Post by freedom2099 »

thyrox wrote: post #18

How does one learn about this stuff? I learned about basic networking in college (the TCP layers) etc but people doing such stuff sounds like Greek to me. If I want to learn more about what the author is doing, is there a resource like a udemy course or YouTube channel you guys can recommend?

What do they teach you at university nowadays??? When I was in university studying computer engineering (almost 20y ago) we were taught networking a very thoroughly! Not only every technology involved but even the small details of how everything worked (from Ethernet cable based network using csma/cd to WiFi). We even studied in details ALOHAnet!

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#167

Post by umvi »

flutas wrote: post #38
umvi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would need to know which vendor. I used to work for a company that provided satellite Internet solutions for airplanes but might not be what OP used

In my mind, probably either Panasonic Avionics or Gogo. If this debugging is true... I'd guess Panasonic from experience working there. Things like an office scavenger hunt usually took priority over actual work.

I believe gogo was/is just a thin wrapper of HughesNet hardware and satellites. So if it was gogo we'd likely need to report the bug to Hughes

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#168

Post by workfromspace »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #142
workfromspace wrote: post #112

15+ years ago, I had the same problem at a Starbucks. I asked the cashiers to reboot the modem, but they didn't understand why. Then I showed my new Microsoft certification card which has MCSE and few others and told them that "trust me, I know what I'm doing". They called their manager, who was also suprised but decided to go along with it and restarted the modem, solving the problem. I remember all the employees we…

That's adjacent to "Do you know who I am?" The problem with certifications are that they aren't a very good signal of quality employees because A+ and MCSx were on every resume along with SQL and Java. The best technical people I've know/n have few to no certifications to please HR, but maybe a Master's or PhD in CS or CCIE. Mostly, certifications have fallen by the wayside since 2008 apart from low-productivity busi…

I agree with this. Likewise, I unfortunately witnessed some colleagues who got certified through test leaks, and they sucked at their job.

Btw back then, Microsoft was suggesting to get the certifications after few years in the industry. I received most certifications because my employers required them for some projects or customers. The last (MS) certification I got was around 2009, and I didn't need any of those during my developer years.

Re: I told the flight attendant "the WiFi isn't working"

#169

Post by NikkiA »

> Obviously, one solution to the problem is that DHCP leases on planes should be drastically shorter, like at 1 hour intervals. Secondly, the number of leases should be drastically increased.

Or just hit the 'internet reset' before each boarding, why are they over complicating this?

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