When Engineers Take Over the Hotel Wi-Fi

At some point, hotels with conference capabilities might get it and install a network that doesn't crash when a flock of technophile people arrive and all connect with three devices to the Internet simultaneously via the hotel Wi-Fi. But we aren't quite at that point yet and whenever I am in countries where I can get my hands on SIM cards with enough data allowance (e.g. Germany, Austria, UK)  I offer additional capacity and a stable network to meeting participants (see here, here, here and here for example).

Another possibility is of course to take over the hotel Wi-Fi and fix things yourself, as recently done by a group of IETF engineers before a meeting in Paris at the Hotel Concorde Lafayette. That is of course when things can be fixed in the first place. In many cases it's not only the Wi-Fi but the hotel routers themselves that are overwhelmed by the number of devices suddenly appearing on the network. And if it's not that then it's often the limited uplink capacity that brings everything to a halt. A very interesting story to read, so head over and enjoy.