Thus spake"Dassa" <dassa(_at_)dhs(_dot_)org>
|> -What kind of small city of such population has a large
|> corporation willing to sponsor an IETF event?
|> -How does making a big event take place in a small town help
|> attendance?
Large corporations also deal with the regional cities, PR coverage
would still be effective and possibly more positive. I'm not sure
that sponsors would take the location into too much account but
may be influenced by a lower spend. It is an outreach geasture
that may attract interest and additional participation.
If the IETF's goal for meetings was to attract the press or general public,
that might be a valid point; AFAIK, it is not.
A sponsor might find that hotels and meeting rooms may be cheaper in a
smaller city, but that has to be balanced against the cost of attendees'
flights, availability of venues, and other suitability factors.
|> As for a couple of your propositions:
|>
|> -People usually get paid less outside of large cities
|> because the cost of living is less so I don't see how that
|> has any bearing, other than forcing everyone, including
|> people living in other small towns to travel extra, and
|> certainly guaranteeing that more people have to travel
|> rather than less.
No, that is the perception that is often quoted and the reason
given but is not always fact. I would normally travel less than
most people working in a captial city.
During the meeting, that might be true, but the concern is getting _to and
from_ said city. Unless the meeting is held in SJ or DC, it's reasonable to
assume that 99% of regular attendees are from out of town.
Most major world cities are airline hubs with nonstop international flights;
that means most attendees can get there in one hop and the remainder can
usually get there in two. For a small city, you are automatically adding
another flight to nearly all attendees, and typical airline pricing means
flying to a "small" city will double (or more) the cost of tickets.
And that's assuming that city even has enough air service to meet the sudden
demand; there are places in the US with 100k+ residents that have 150
seats/day (or less) of air service -- assuming they have an airport at all.
In such cases, nearly all attendees would end up flying to a major city and
then drive down, adding two days to the trip.
The benefit would be those with sub-standard connections would
have the opportunity to participate where otherwise they might
not have the opportunity.
Only for those people actually living in that small city, which not
statistically likely to include any IETF members other than those employed
by the sponsor.
However, those IETF members who cannot attend (particularly since you've
increased the cost of doing so) might not be able to participate if the
venue doesn't have sufficient bandwidth to support streaming the meeting.
It would also assist with focusing on the issue of increasing
broadband uptake and opportunities. It would certainly be a
good PR exercise.
It's not the goal of IETF meetings to do PR exercises, nor would one week of
demand be enough to convince the local telco or regulators that increased
deployment of broadband is necessary.
S
Stephen Sprunk "Stupid people surround themselves with smart
CCIE #3723 people. Smart people surround themselves with
K5SSS smart people who disagree with them." --Aaron Sorkin
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