Hotel Internet systems struggling to keep up with demand

We're barely 48 hours away from the start of CES (and hopefully you're reading our advance coverage already), which means tens of thousands of geeks descending on Las Vegas. One thing I'm not looking forward to: All the guys walking around with fanny packs. But even worse than that: The Wi-Fi situation.

As the New York Times reports, the ubiquity of wireless-capable products, from laptops to iPhones, is drowning many of the networks installed in hotels, convention centers, and other places where techies and businessfolk congregate. Now it's gotten to the point where meetings are being moved because bandwidth can't keep up with demand.

The problem is twofold: First, many hotels installed T1 lines a decade ago, and their 1.5Mbps performance was fine back then for the smattering of guests using the system to check email and read headlines. But today, usage has skyrocketed -- not just the number of users but what they're doing online, too: Downloading apps, watching high-def video, P2P, streaming music all day. Those poor T1s, never upgraded, just can't keep up.

The Times story doesn't cover it explicitly, but the Wi-Fi networks at these hotels can be a pain point, too. With hundreds of people often trying to hop onto a single access point, the end result is that, oftentimes, no one connects. Even the Wi-Fi network at the CES press room -- which you'd think would be outfitted with bandwidth to spare -- is notorious for being unavailable during peak hours, its wireless network crushed with too much traffic. And CES show floor demos that fail to work (again, a regular event) are regularly punctuated with "Well... the network is overloaded."

For the first time in years, I have no WWAN card to use as a backup during this trip, but with attendance forecast to be down, I'm hoping for the best. Meanwhile, check out the Times piece to see how some hotels and convention venues are dealing with the broadband issue.