Trouble with E3 Wi-Fi, especially for a press event

The concept of free or easily accessible Wi-Fi has apparently skipped over the city of Santa Monica and resides in the metropolis of San Francisco and the LA Convention Center. With this E3 having all these hotels spread out over many miles, how is it that the only press room is at the Fairmont (the hotel farthest away from the main conference cluster)? The rest of the hotels say they have Wi-Fi in the lobby, but at a nice $10+ price tag, with the expectation of attending numerous hotels, is a $50 plus added expense per day. Expensible or not, it's still a ludicrous crime against technology. The only thing more laughable than the price is whether the Wi-Fi will work.

Please ESA, for E3 '08, it would be nice if more thought went into having the press actually be capable of doing their jobs. We can't complain about the beauty of this E3 (the outside Microsoft press conference was very nice), but Wi-Fi should not cost anything at a press event and the expectation of everybody having EVDO cards for internet connection anywhere wasn't a necessary concept at previous E3s. When it all took place in one building, getting connected and information out wasn't that big of an issue. Free the Wi-Fi ESA, let the information flow. The irony that hotels like The Loews are hundreds of dollars a night and don't have free Wi-Fi is not lost on us. Meanwhile, the Best Western has it free in their lobby.

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