Bandwidth for Stake Conference

Are other stakes shutting down WIFI totally while stake conference is being streamed in the sending building and receiving building? Do you feel this is necessary?

Would a simple announcement over the pulpit "Don't connect to the building's WIFI today", be enough?

Thanks.

People who use cell phones would have to specifically turn the wifi radio off in order to avoid their phone auto-connecting. You are better off disabling the wifi to ensure no accidental connections especially from people who arrive late.

I agree with rbeede. Disabling the WiFi will ensure better success. A lot of people with mobile devices have no clue how to manage their devices to prevent them from connecting. And with a lot of devices auto-connecting even when the user is not trying to connect, an announcement will mean nothing.

100% of the time that I have forgotten to disable wireless access I've had issues, 100% of the time I disable the wireless I don't have any issues.

We had trouble disabling the WiFi at a receiving meetinghouse today. As a result, the broadcast failed. Sadly, this is the third time in three attempts for that half of the stake.

In any event, is it true that even if the antennas from the 881W are removed, you have to also disconnect the WAPs somehow? We discovered too late that there was a 4th WAP in the building and the person operating the broadcast did not know how to disable it.

lajackson wrote: In any event, is it true that even if the antennas from the 881W are removed, you have to also disconnect the WAPs somehow? We discovered too late that there was a 4th WAP in the building and the person operating the broadcast did not know how to disable it.

Yes you have to disable the WAP's as well. What I have done is just unplug the network cable to them before the broadcast and then plug it back in after.

We put all the AP's on a power strip, Just flip the switch.

rolandc wrote:We put all the AP's on a power strip, Just flip the switch.

Doesn't work if all you have is the 881W which many meetinghouses have.

I ALWAYS bypass the firewall at the sending site, plugging in the appliance directly to the DSL line. That way the AP's and the firewall are both out of the picture. At receiving sites we REQUIRE ethernet cables and firewalls shut off - even if they have to run a 300ft ethernet cable to get to the right place.

Without Ethernet connections in our meetinghouses we are left to struggle to do these webcasts successfully. Seriously? I can't get an ethernet port at the podium... maybe I should request and get budget in both 2012 and 2013 for that...wait.. we did....

JohnShaw wrote:At receiving sites we REQUIRE ethernet cables and firewalls shut off - even if they have to run a 300ft ethernet cable to get to the right place.

You require? We were not consulted. It just showed up one day. In fact, I thought there were three WAPs at the receiving site. Turns out there were four. The operator thought there were two.

You can see how the math worked out on that. [sigh]

When we do our webcasts, we INFORM the receiving sites (I've done many single-stake, and many multi-stake webcasts) that if they are using wireless at the receiving computer, we will not guarantee anything, it is on their heads whether it is successful or not. We ALWAYS want wireless to be out of the picture for any kind of webcasts scenarios. In our area we have NO room for anything other than the webcasts using the bandwidth of our sites.

This is our best way to ensure that Wireless is disabled in the meetinghouse at the receiving end.

JohnShaw wrote:When we do our webcasts, we INFORM the receiving sites (I've done many single-stake, and many multi-stake webcasts) that if they are using wireless at the receiving computer, we will not guarantee anything, . . .

This is our best way to ensure that Wireless is disabled in the meetinghouse at the receiving end.

We are going to go to the receiving site next time, because they were not able to do it themselves and lost most of the broadcast.

In June of this year, we had our first real problem with stake conference broadcast and WIFI. Our stake was give the password to those who need it in leadership. However, this year that was changed to give it to those who asked. This created a huge problem. Like mentioned in this post, everyone has at least a cell phone using up the bandwidth and then you add on tablets, laptops and the list can go on and on that is has caused problems.

In on of our units, we had to shut down the WIFI so that the broadcast could be the best it could. Once we did that things got a lot better at the building. I also had to shut down the WIFI at the stake center. So WIFI is a HUGE issue.

So just shut it off for the three hours for stake conference. They don't need it anyway.

harddrive wrote:In on of our units, we had to shut down the WIFI so that the broadcast could be the best it could. Once we did that things got a lot better at the building. I also had to shut down the WIFI at the stake center. So WIFI is a HUGE issue.

So just shut it off for the three hours for stake conference. They don't need it anyway.

Yes, shutting down the WiFi is recommended on both the upload and download ends of any webcast, even if you think you have ample bandwidth. It can help reduce the chance of an interrupted webcast that can seriously disrupt the spirit of the meeting for those viewing.

We've seen a bit of a proliferation of this lately haven't we? How are people doing webcasts without turning off wifi in the building first, I think we've pretty well established that it is a MUST in any scenario.

JohnShaw wrote:I think we've pretty well established that it is a MUST in any scenario.

Yes, and be sure to place guards at the door so someone doesn't try to reconnect the antennas to the firewall during the broadcast. [sigh]

lajackson wrote:Yes, and be sure to place guards at the door so someone doesn't try to reconnect the antennas to the firewall during the broadcast. [sigh]

Which tells me the firewall is not properly secured.

right... our firewall is at the location we broadcast from, so not a huge deal for us....

russellhltn wrote:Which tells me the firewall is not properly secured.

Still unidentified, it was someone with a key who should have known better.