
SwissCom Tries To Deflect Criticism Of Le Web Internet Failure - ctingom
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/13/swisscomm-tries-to-deflect-criticism-of-le-web-internet-failure/
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randomwalker
My experience traveling around France this summer was quite eye-opening. At
the first household I stayed at, they had no connectivity when I was there.
Tech support put them on hold for half an hour, then said they'd send someone
to fix it within two weeks.

 _Two weeks!_ Things happen on a different time-scale there. This wasn't rural
France, it was in the University area of one of the major cities. The longest
I've been without Internet in the U.S in the last 3 years with roadrunner is
overnight, during a thunderstorm. And things always get fixed promptly.

That wasn't an isolated experience either. Many French cities, always the same
story. Even when the connection did work, half the time it was so slow as to
be unusable.

I'm totally with Arrington on the overall coverage of LeWeb. The amount of
hanging out, drinking beer and chatting about politics that goes on is pretty
absurd (not just in France, other European countries as well). That's actually
great if you have a normal job, but definitely a problem if you're trying to
do a startup. Europeans need to get real before they can catch up with Silicon
Valley.

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andr
1800 people attended Le Web 08. If SwissCom charged E100,000 total, that makes
55 euro per person to provide 2 days of Internet connectivity! That costs more
than 2 months of residential DSL per person. Ridiculous, even if it had
worked.

------
wmf
_Day 1 was a complete writeoff and I left mid day to work from my hotel._

He couldn't listen to the talks, take notes, and post them later? Unless he
means that the talks were a writeoff because the presenters had no net access.

~~~
Angostura
I presume that, like most journalists - just because he was at a show, it
didn't mean he was just writing about the show. I was a tech journalist/edit
for many years. When I was at a show I spent my time talk to people at the
show, yes - but also had commitments - to edit copy, handle other stories that
the office was sending me and deal with other administrivia remotely.

Combine that with the fact that half the demos you had booked in advance to
see would not have been working and yes... I can imagine having to bail from
the hall. Of course, that's why we gave all the journalists cellular data
cards for emergencies.

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pragmatic
Is that really a big deal? What really goes on at conferences that makes any
difference to us?

A bunch of self appointed "experts" echoing each others enthusiasm for the
next ridiculous meme? How are conferences relevant in our always connected
society?

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wavesplash
It must be the weekend. Nothing but drama on TC again.

