[MLB-WIRELESS] BarCampMelbourne: Getting internet access for a weekend

[Ben Balbo]

Hi folks!

BarCampMelbourne (read below for info about this event) is on the
12-13th September at Urban Camp in Royal Park, and they don't provide
internet access. My current options are to get a DSL line connected for
the weekend (Internode might be open to the idea, being keep open source
supporters), get an HSDPA link (as we did in a rural version of this
conference 4 months ago) or connect to the Melbourne Wireless network.

So, I'm wondering whether using the MW network would be appropriate
(it's not like we're creating a persistent node to benefit the group;
although that could be an option if Urban Camp are interested in
sponsoring the space/power). If appropriate, I'll need to scope the area
out for LOS, and was wondering whether anyone would be interested in
assisting me.

Mike Everest has lent me a dish for testing out connectivity in
Portarlington (sorry for hanging on to it for so long - let me know if
you need it back!) which I can use, I'd just need a mast.

Now, assuming that it's okay to use the MW network for this purpose and
there's LOS, would it be impractical in terms of speed/bandwidth for 120
or so people to get Internet access for a 2 day tech conference? The
last conference ran over HSDPA and we pulled, from memory, less than a
Gb of data with no major complaints about speed (in other words, I don't
think we'd pull much more than that regardless of connection type).

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to get this group of geeks online are
greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
Ben

BarCampMelbourne is an open, participatory, user generated conference
that covers topics related to business and technology, not necessarily
but predominantly revolving around open source. This will be the 4th
such event run in Victoria. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcamp for
more info.

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