It was very late when we all came back from the film screening and after party of the Palm Springs ShortFest Film Festival. There were about eight film directors from five different countries gathered in the lobby of the hotel. Everyone was surfing the web on their laptops or tablets, and some where hanging on their phones. It wasn’t long before the throng was speaking out about the extremely slow internet connection provided by the hotel.
Speeds were so slow that I couldn’t even load my email. When several of us went to the front desk, we were told to return the following morning to speak to their IT specialist. Frustrated and hopeless, a colleague mentioned that our only solution involved more drinks to pass the night away. Before he could reach for the door, I pulled out my Verizon MiFi. Before you know it, I was connected to the Internet with a speed of 18 Gigabits/second.
All the directors, media members, and internet-surfing-hopefuls gathered around my Acer Iconia W7 tablet. I played them a video that I shot at the festival party and posted the clip to my Facebook. After playing it back in HD, I could hear them marveling behind me—“Wow!”
There is an old saying from ancient China that says, “Share good things with your friends.” Therefore I invited four of my new friends to connect to my MiFi. You could see the jealousy in the faces of those who were left out, still watching the status bars on their browsers.
After our initial success, I invited more from the lobby-hopefuls to attempt to join my mobile hotspot. I had an imaginary drum roll, building suspense in my head as each new person attempted to join and, eventually connected successfully. Now, we had nine people sharing the device and enjoying surfing the Internet. I must say, sharing my internet never brought me so much joy! The cherry on top was that the speed stayed fast and nobody’s performance suffered from our numerous connections.
That night at the festival will never be forgotten, thanks to the Verizon MiFi.