Ian Framson, Founder and CEO of Trade Show Internet got into the business as a result of being an extremely frustrated exhibitor at trade shows. “I was running the marketing for a start-up company that was doing a lot of trade shows and management finally got fed up with the exorbitant rates charged to exhibitors for Internet and tasked me with building a workaround. So I started with Verizon wireless cards and kept experimenting until we had a good workaround.” The company Framson was working at didn’t do too well and he ended up leaving in 2009 and decided to take his trade show Internet solution out to other exhibitors and Trade Show Internet, Inc. (TSI) was born.
Today the company is doing lots of shows and business keeps growing. “We found a big problem and fixed it,” he said. “Internet at events is all screwed up. We can generally save the exhibitor or even the event producer $900 or much more per connection depending on what the in-house vendor is charging.” TSI offers both a 3G and 4G solution and gives the ability to create your own network with either wireless or wired solutions. 
Trade Show Internet did have had some challenges with facilities and in-house Internet providers claiming exclusivity but Framson says that’s just not true or legal and they have never had a situation where ultimately they were not allowed to provide service to a client that wanted it. Verizon generally puts their own cellular antenna in or near an event facility and pays rent to the center to be able to offer its customer’s service. See more on Consumer Rights here but the FCC does provide for specific rights specifically to exhibitors and event producers which are leasing the space they are using. Framson points out that the FCC provides federally guaranteed rights that allow for the ability to do things like install an antenna.
The TSI system costs $300 or $400 unit rental and covers a three day rental period. The system is shipped to your hotel a day before the event and includes a cellular broadband router, Verizon data card, booster antenna, Ethernet cable, a quick start guide and return shipping labels. You can have multiple units running off one rental. After the show, just put all of the equipment back into the shipping case and call for a pick up.
Framson says that upload and download speed can be quite comparable or even favorable to a dropped shared internet line which is usually a 1 megabit line (though you can buy more). Average cost for that he notes is about $1,200 and the show producer often gets a small discount say down to $900 for their connections. With a 3G connection you are getting a dedicated place on the network, unlike with a shared line, and download rates are 1 meg and ½ to 1 meg for upload. With 4G you can get 2 to 10 times those rates. You also get an unlimited number of IP addresses which typically cost from $150 to $200 from the in-house Internet provider. That means for each computer you are connecting, a new IP address is needed driving the cost higher.
What about streaming from your event? While the upload speeds seem to support streaming, the caveat is always there that we are dealing with the Internet and the wireless network on top of that and you have to factor in unforeseen situations. TSI offers a money back guarantee for any reason if you are unsatisfied. We’ll likely be demoing Trade Show Internet at the Virtual Edge Summit in January in San Diego so will be able to give you first hand experience there.
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- Virtual Edge Announces Additional Program for Trade Show Producers & Association Professionals at January 2011 Summit
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sounds promising!