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Wireless manners; how to piss off your guests

Here we are at Intel's flagship conference for Europe, the Intel Developer Forum - and there's no Internet access in the main conference hall.

Actually, there's no wireless access in the other lecture areas either, but that's not altogether Intel's fault; the Berlin conference centre seems to have given the wireless franchise to T-Mobile, and T-Mobile's ability to keep the network running has been over-stressed.

I don't want to make Intel feel unhappy about the way it ran the Developer Forum in Berlin this year - but the company has to decide what century this is. When you invite analysts and observers to a public function these days, they expect to be able to get online while they're there.

And in 2003, wireless isn't just a party trick any more. Since the invention of the public hotspot, and the Centrino notebook, there has to be an extraordinary reason to suddenly deprive power-wireless users of their lifeline to the Internet.

It's a bit like inviting guests to your home, and when they ask for a drink of water, telling them that there's a perfectly good river flowing down the end of the road. Even if there is, it's inappropriate! In civilised society, we expect to get water at the turn of a tap. "Go drop a bucket down the well" is something for antique lifestyle museums and nostalgia freaks, not for everyday use.

Today, if someone lectures you, you need to be able to fill in the gaps. When Mike Fister talks about high performance Itanium processors, and mentions "Deerfield" you may be one of the experts who knows exactly when it was first launched. If you aren't, you can interrupt the presentation, and shout out: "Hey, Mike! - when did you first mention Deerfield in public?" or you may prefer to discreetly Google the data up.

Making notes is a process, not just of writing down what the speaker says, but fleshing it out; when the speaker says "we see more access points in the market" you may know that there are figures on the Intel site. You want to dig those out now, and embed them in your notes. You may, of course, remember this later; and you may not; do it now!

And of course it works both ways. If Maloney announces a new laser modulation technology, someone like myself likes to post the information onto the Web immediately. Yes, you can sit tight and wait for the two-hour presentation to finish, and then you can go up stairs, and log onto one of the provided machines; or you can get up and walk out of the presentation and rush to the phones. But that's a last-century behaviour.

As John E Davies said at the Forum, "There is a mobility inflection point; the user expectations are rising." Davis is VP and GM, Solutions Market Development Group; he is completely right; he studies this closely. But is Intel eating its own dog-food?

A year ago, Intel held its IDF in Munich, and not only provided wireless 802.11b access in most lecture theatres and the main conference hall, but also managed to provide a trail-blazing 802.11a network in most areas. Excellent.

But here in Berlin, there is a wireless LAN in the main presentation hall. It's for Intel's use only. We're asked, blatantly, to 'avoid taking advantage of the mobile experience we have here in the keynotes.' What does this actually mean, I asked.

"Sorry if this offends, but the keynote isn't a time for you to do your email," said a spokesman.

This is like telling a dinner guest that the meal isn't the time to drink water, and they can wait till the wine is finished. If they don't like your wine, the solution isn't to prevent them from having water; it's to get better wine.

So, sorry if this offends, Intel, but if your presentation isn't more interesting than my email, the solution is a better presentation - not to withhold the provision of wireless Internet. Come on! - you're a pioneer in this area! If you can't do it, how can you expect anybody else to?

And if the problem is simply that T-Mobile can't hack it at this venue, then don't use this venue! If the venue didn't have back projection facilities that could be seen by all the audience, you wouldn't hire it.

This is 2003; if a venue doesn't have proper wireless LAN capabilities to support all the audience, then go somewhere else.