Airventure Wifi was good in 2017

[Bill Berson]

The wifi service was great this year. No problem all week.
The sign said to limit Internet time so others could use it.
Does that refer to limiting actual internet activity, or does it require actually turning off the wifi when not in use?

[Kyle Boatright]

The wifi service was great this year. No problem all week.
The sign said to limit Internet time so others could use it.
Does that refer to limiting actual internet activity, or does it require actually turning off the wifi when not in use?

Our experience in Homebuilt Camping was spotty. There were moments with great signal strength and bandwidth, there were moments with great signal strength and very little bandwidth, and there were times where there was (seemingly) no available signal at all. It seemed to get better as the week progressed.

[Cary]

It was better than in past years near the new showers in the North 40, but it was a far cry from perfect.

Cary

[Auburntsts]

Our experience in HBC it was mediocre at best and I'd say worse than last year. We had difficulty connecting and when we did we didn't stay on very long-- I resorted to cellular data more often than not. I will say the closer to Boeing Plaza we got the better service.

[PaulDow]

I tried it a couple times, and didn't have much luck. I was on the show grounds, not in camping. I just went to cell data.
Verizon service wasn't too bad. I could always get voice & text to work. Data connections were mostly usable, but not like being away from the congestion. We tried finding each other with the location sharing function in Google Maps, but that didn't update very well. We could tell if someone was in a particular area, such as Warbirds, but it wasn't good enough to be able to actually find them.
I could usually get web pages to load reasonably, except for Wed. night when everyone must have been trying to check weather. The storm caught us by surprise. Weather bug just showed a clear sky since it didn't load the radar data.

[N3kf]

I actually found it was better last year in Camp Schooler. I was at stitz and linberg about 6 spaces down. Was fine on Sunday when we got there, but for the rest of the week I had signal, got ip address, but the connection to the outside world was non existent or spotty at best. Had to use my phone's data connection, which worked, but was slow (to be expected with that crowd!).

[DaleB]

I was in HBC. I had to just turn wifi off completely and use cellular data. Once in a great while I'd get connected to wifi, but it was incapable of passing data. This was consistent from my spot, the HBC pavilion and a couple of times when I tried from the Subway in HBP and over by the vendor display hangars.

I know it's a tough environment to try to set up wifi, and I do appreciate that EAA tries, but in the past three years with two different phones and a tablet, I don't think I have gotten a usable wifi signal for more than a few minutes total.

[CarlOrton]

I was pleasantly surprised at how much the wifi has improved over the last few years. I don't camp, so my experiences are solely on the grounds. It really didn't seem to matter where I was, I not only got a good 4-5 bars of strength, I was able to access sites very quickly. I will add that due to mobility issues I was mostly centered in the forums areas and the exhibit hangars and surrounding areas, so I can't comment on Vintage, Warbirds, or HBP.

[Bill Berson]

I had good service at Ultralights, Theater in The Woods and Forums. I think you should only expect service near the device where the signs are.

[FlyingRon]

As usual it sucked badly in Vintage. It was pretty much unusuable all the time. Most of the time you couldn't even connect. When you did connect, it wasn't connected to the Internet. It's been an ongoing problem, but the EAA refuses to address it.

[Grum.man]

WIFI was very spotty for me. I stayed connected the whole time but couldn't really do anything because of the limited bandwidth I suppose. Not going to complain though as WIFI is a nice to have, not a necessity.

[Mayhemxpc]

I had good luck with it in WB and WB camping. same for some of the dining venues and spot along the flight line. Not perfect but it was WAYYYYY better than in past years. A strong congratulations to the team that made it happen.

[Gary.Sobek]

Was not able to get a reliable WiFi connection Monday through Friday anywhere on the AirVenture 2017 grounds. Used my cell data and it worked well. WiFi worked very well in the dorms.

[gmatejcek]

I was inn Scholler, one long block south of a wifi shack. Each couple days I'd take my computer to the shack to do what needed to be done as the wifi was useless at the campsite.

[Bill Berson]

I think wifi only works about a hundred feet from the source.

[Martyfeehan]

I was way out at 27th and Cottenwood; no WiFi at all. Not surprised. I think if you are by one of the source buildings your good otherwise not so much. In reality, it didn't matter. I was way to busy with plenty of other things to do away from my computer.
Marty

[azmedic85355]

Totally forgot about the wifi,no data/connections issues at all during the week using Tmobile


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[steve]

WIFI is a nice to have, not a necessity.

+1

One more data point: I had little difficulty getting a signal in HBC near gate 34 at 5am.

[Bill Berson]

Wifi is needed to access the social media (whatever that is) EAA suggested I use to find stuff to see at Oshkosh. I wish they had a simple bulletin board to check each morning instead. The Airventure Today paper was good but didn't have everything.

[skyfixer8]

Left computer home, carried phone in case needed and enjoyed Airventure. Why bring computer anyway ?

[DaleB]

Left computer home, carried phone in case needed and enjoyed Airventure. Why bring computer anyway ?
That depends on your definition of "computer". My iPhone is a fairly powerful computer, as is the 8" Samsung tablet I use. As for why to bring the latter, I use it for web browsing, email, carrying all of my reference material for the plane, flight planning, weather, in-flight ADS-B traffic display and a few other things. I could do without it, but why not have it if possible? It weighs less than a paperback, though it cost a bit more.

Fortunately my phone has an unlimited data plan and personal hotspot (thank you, O Benevolent Employer) so the lack of wifi was not a huge issue.

[Bill Berson]

I bring my iPad mini for checking email, web browsing, and for FaceTime to call home. It has a camera for sharing photos on forums instantly at Oshkosh. My iPad only works with wifi.
I don't have a computer at home anymore.

[Rod Schneider]

We were in Scholler at 37th and Lindbergh (right across the street from the Cirrus Party.........) and WiFi was very good up until the convention started...... After that, despite good signal strength, actually getting to the internet was mostly not possible. Good thing I have decent cell data plans. For those questioning the need for a "computer" while at EAA, among other things it's great to take a peek at weather and see if that storm out to the west will miss us, or is it time to batten down the hatches!