Blogging the conference, part two

Christian Crumlish

I decided to try to plumb the native talent of clients and other people subscribed to the Waterside "virtual conference" mailing list:

I'm trying to arrange wireless access at the 2003 Waterside Conference (in Berkeley), and I wanted to ask the members of this list whether anyone has experience setting up this kind of impromptu wireless shared access in the past, especially in other conference settings. I plan to blog the conference and hope other participants will do so as well, providing live real-time coverage of keynote speakers, panels, workshops, and hallway encounters.

Here are some of things I'm trying to sort out:

1. Will this work with one DSL or T1 ethernet access points, a hub to do DHCP, and one or more Airport or Linksys type wireless base stations? If we want to offer wireless access in the main auditorium as well as, say, in the demo room, would I need a second access point, or can a second base station pick up the network by being wthin range of the first base station?
   
   In a nutshell, are there hardware elements I am overlooking or networking concepts I have egregiously wrong? I have a spare hub, yards of ethernet, and one base station, so I think I can provide almost everything just by stripping my office...
2. The hotel wants to know "how many computers" will be using the access, saying they need to set aside separate IP for each one. I think they don't understand DHCP or that they need to be told that one computer (my hub) will be needing just one IP address, thanks. It's all subnet masking behind the DHCP/NAT server, right?
3. I'm obviously semiclueless about this stuff, so I'd like to take out to dinner anyone planning to come to the conference who knows more about such matters and who would be willing to help me in a pinch in configuring and setting up the access on site.

I'll keep you posted.