Full speed ahead!

Pilot fish at this software company is helping the marketing team plan a user conference. And the networking requirements are very impressive.

"Marketing wanted the network to be 'fully connected and operational throughout the demo floor,'" fish reports. "Sales wanted to have full connectivity from any system on the demo floor back to the applications at the company.

"That's not a hard thing to do, but the requirement was that each of the demo machines was to have — as they worded it — full Internet speed."

With 21 demo machines, that means 21 runs of broadband cable and 21 broadband modems rented for 10 days each, plus the services of three techs for setup and one to do onsite maintenance. Fish prices it all out, and the total is staggering.

But at the planning meeting, marketing OKs it without hesitation.

Later that day, fish finds out why: Marketing has dumped the cost into the sales budget — leaving it badly cratered.

"Both departments' VPs showed up at my desk and in raised voices, at the same time, screamed this was my entire fault," groans fish.

"While they were yelling, I excused myself and went to the restroom. Being male, and the VPs female, I felt I was safe for a moment and they had the opportunity to calm down.

"It worked. I returned to my desk a couple minutes later, and we discussed the situation. Neither wanted to pay for the Internet speed, but they wouldn't share the cost either. My solution was simple."

OK, maybe not quite that simple. But fish knows the conference hotel offers free Wi-Fi for attendees. He gets the hotel's permission to set up a broadband repeater and 21 Wi-Fi network adapters with external adapters, which the company already has — and that fish can set up by himself.

Fish never does get through to the two VPs that getting "full Internet speed" doesn't really depend on how many computers are on the network, just on how many are communicating at the same time.

But fish's solution works and it's a lot cheaper, so they're happy.

"My boss was a friend of the marketing VP and married to the sales VP," fish says. "During this entire process, he stayed out of the office. I did keep him informed so he wouldn't get blindsided.

"But I received a great review from my boss during the next cycle."

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