Gossip

Finally, connectivity restored in Monte Carlo

You've probably been wondering where your friend Sniffer had vanished. He's been the victim of too many "clever" network managers ...

This session - finally! - reaches you from our attempt to cover the Monte Carlo "Mobility Convergence" conference, running today and tomorrow by the grey seas of the Cote D'Azur. You may be envious of the Sniffer; you should be grateful to be at home.

The conference has WiFi wireless provided by Intel (sponsor) and by a French connectivity specialist, Paris WebCube, which is providing the Intel USB WiFi unit, Anypoint, for the duration of the show.

Most people who provide wireless Internet connectivity use DHCP - your system gets an Internet address from the local server, and then goes live. For reasons which elude Sniffer's proving, Paris WebCube decided to set it up with fixed IP addresses. The result has been that our connectivity has been up and down like a proxy-holding protestor at an oil company AGM.

Still, the Boss seems to be smiling for the first time in a week; we'll have the wireless news, he says, from now on ...