This year, Rowell wasn't able to attend WLPC. But François made it to Phoenix and presented too!

Why You Shoulnd't Skip WLPC

WLPC 2018 was packed with a lot of great presentations by different people in the Wi-Fi industry. The format of this years' conference was a little different:

• 3 Main sessions of 55 mins
• 13 Short sessions of 30 mins
• 29 TEN talks of 10mins
• Deep Dive sessions (2x 2.5h) on different topics (Every attendee had to choose one when registering)

The trends for WLPC 2018

• 802.11ax
• AI
• Dual 5GHz APs (A little less than last year)
• Programming (deep dive on Python + template report)
• IoT ready APs

What to look for in the Future

• Talk on 5G with Peter Thornycroft from Aruba
  • 5G is not well defined yet but might change a lot of things in our industry
  • Talked about all the different technology involved (LAA, LWA, Multifire, Wi-Fi)
• WPA3. We got a little more details on what it will be from Heather Williams
  • Enhancement of WPA2 (802.11w mandatory, KRACK mitigation,
  • What’s coming with WPA3
  • Simultaneous Authentication of Equals (protect against stupid passwords)
  • Opportunistic Wireless Encryption (OWE) (Some protection for open SSID)
  • Device Provisioning Protocol (DPP) (IoT device protection)

The Community

• Talk on blogging by Lee Badman
• Talk on the Wi-Fi Pro slack group from Manon Lessard and Samuel Clements
• Update from the WLA from Peter MacKenzie and Mark Raats
• Harnessing the Power of community from Tom Hollingsworth
• Explained what a community is
• Explain how to engage with a community (Wi-Fi community)
• How to handle divergent viewpoints: stay civil and respect each other
• Presentation of the conference from Keith Parsons
• Apart from the presentations, other event got organized
• Morning runs
• Morning Yoga
• Morning prayers
• Retro video game night
• Whiskey and Wireless podcast recording

Interesting Sessions

• Impact of LTE-U on Wi-Fi in 5GHz by VEli-Pekka Ketonen
• Polarizing Figures by Scott Lester – Talk on external antennas
  • Interesting stats: 90% to 98% of AP sold with internal integrated antennas
• Deep dive into PoE by Jonathan Smith
• Does it matter what AP you buy from Wes Purvis
  • Data comparing different types of APs (2×2:2 vs 3×3:3 vs 4×4:4, 11n vs 11ac w1, 11ac w2)
  • Get up to 28% performance with higher end APs
  • Low-end AP can reach hardware limitation
  • 3×3 offers up to 10% less throughput improvement vs 4×4 (lower retry rate + maintaining 3SS easier)
• Challenges in Modeling Campus by Vladan Jevremovic
  • Showed us how to model a outdoor park
• Airport Utility – Monitor iOS devices + Python scripting by Eric Garnel
• RRM by Blake Krone
  • Talked about how different vendors do it (Cisco, Aruba, Ruckus)
  • Talked about what to do when you enable it (configuration)
  • Talked about what you do once it’s on (monitoring)
• When a WLAN Pro starts a WISP by Steve McKim
• RSSI Revealed by GRegor Vucajnk

Useful Sessions

• Do you have a Mac from Adrian Granados
• A lot of good information for Wi-Fi Explorer users
• Filtering and coloring Frames with wireshark from Joel Crane

Announcements

• Wi-Fi Alliance announced the launch of their Wi-Fi CERTIFIED Optimized Connectivity. Talk from Ortiz Consuelo
• WLA released their transparent book
• Ekahau announced the support for BLE design in ESS in the near future

Controversial Topic

• Ghost frames (Ben Miller vs. Devin Akin)

Lee Badman was named Person of the Year for his huge contribution to the Wi-Fi community in general.