When we launched DCWEEK three months ago, we knew there would be a lot of unknowns. Many of those unknowns have included venues, content, schedule issues and malfunctioning robots. However, when you’re producing a festival for nearly 4,000 people one of the most expensive unknowns is connectivity – meaning, will the wireless access work, how strong will it be, and how much will it cost in the venues you’re using.
Sadly, when we found out the cost part – it almost killed the festival. It was going to cost almost $30,000 to power an internet connection at our venue, UMC Conference Center, for Gov & Org 2.0 Day, 140Conf, and the Digital Garage. You see, UMC’s Conference Center is brand new and not wired for broadband yet. But it’s perfect for DCWEEK with all its classrooms, HD theater and location in downtown DC so we didn’t want to abandon it.
So what do you do when you’re faced with a $30,000 bill that will crush your budget and force you to starve DC’s innovation community of the programming they’re seeking at DCWEEK?
You scramble.
You investigate every option under the sun. You call your friend Nigel at Intel and promise to name your first-born child after him if he has a solution to power this venue – he did.
His solution was to get in touch with CLEAR; my first-born child will be named Nigel.
CLEAR is a 4G WiMaX provider that launched for DC wide use on June 1st, 2010 and they’re graciously providing wireless access at our core festival events from 6/16 to 6/19. They’re literally pointing the signals from their nearby towers at the building we’ll be in.
CLEAR has told us from the beginning that they want to support DC’s innovation community in whatever way they can. You can be sure that over the coming years they’ll be a part of making DC a better-connected capital for all of us to enjoy and to do big, important work in.
Thank you, CLEAR. Really. My second born will have to now be named Clear Corbett!
It’s with pleasure that I include two items that you should pay attention to regarding CLEAR for the festival:
1) Join CLEAR and the DCWEEK team at 4:45 on Saturday, 6/19 during the Digital Garage for a “Wired Cities” discussion on collectivity, digital divide and how broadband can reshape our national’s capitol
2) For a limited time, customers in central Washington D.C. can take advantage of CLEAR’s online-only mobile Internet promotion with plans starting as low as $15 per month and for the first two months after receive a $50 service credit. This online promotion is available at www.clear.com/washington-dc
