As I sit in the airport waiting for a flight home, I’ve had some thoughts about HITEC 2012 that I thought I would share. I think the show was a success… There were plenty of people present who seemed ready to buy new technology. That’s a good thing, too… because it was incredibly obvious that the hospitality industry has a long way t go to catch up.
I’m glad I was able to share the things I did, but let me say that throughout my trip, Internet access has been uniformly abominable. I was able to get about .5 megabit access in my hotel room, which was enough to post several reports if I was patient, but it was nowhere near what I’m used to and it made my job really that much tougher.
Of course, that’s in stark contrast to the convention center, which was totally, totally unequipped to handle the load. No disrespect intended, but this wasn’t even an overly “techie” crowd and the convention center wi-fi was utterly, utterly overloaded. The same can be said for the cell service… with the exhibits in the basement is was impossible to stay on a call for more than a minute. You could tell where the service was strongest from the clusters of attendees huddled together like Inuit around a fire.
Of course, I missed my DIRECTV, especially with no real access to Netflix or other services. I can’t wait until I can stay in a hotel with the DIRECTV residential experience.
So, readers, I’ll be posting content from the HITEC show for the next few weeks as I pour through all the stuff I got here in Baltimore. Keep reading for more info!
