Connectivity
A common concern when planning for online/mobile bidding at an event is how participants will access Auctria.
There are several factors to consider:
Texting
Texting is the simplest and generally most trouble-free option for connectivity. If you have a reasonable cell phone signal throughout the venue, sending and receiving texts should work fine.
If possible, confirm whether there is a strong signal for each of the major telephone providers in your area.
Cellular Data
Participants using the mobile app or accessing the website from their phone can use the cellular data associated with their plan. You cannot affect this other than confirming there is a strong signal throughout the venue. Most phones will show the type of data connection they can achieve in the status bar.
Participants may be concerned about bandwidth if they have limited monthly data, or some plans may need a cellular data option.
Using the website or mobile app is a low-bandwidth activity, akin to browsing Facebook (without videos!). It typically consumes no more than a few megabytes at most with browsing and bidding.
Installing the mobile app is a larger download and may take 20-30MB of data, depending on the phone.
WiFi
Another option is to use a venue's WiFi network. However, this is more complex to validate than relying on the cell network.
There are several advantages to WiFi:
- participants do not need to have (or use) their cellular data
- for more rural events, cellular data may not be reliable
- you can use non-cellular devices (for example, tablets)
The questions that you need to answer when considering using WiFi include:
- how will participants access the network:
- is it password protected?
- does it require going through a sign-on (portal) page?
- how many clients can the network support?
- what internet bandwidth is available overall?
If your event is at a commercial venue, such as a hotel or conference center, you will have no control over the network and should ask the venue for details on the connection. Often, these venues will have different tiers of WiFi access you can buy; however, they can become very price-prohibitive when there are many guests.
If your event is at a school or church, you will need to ask the IT group for details of the WiFi network.
Connecting to WiFi
If you provide participants with WiFi access, then it is essential to provide clear instructions. This is especially important if a password or portal page needs to be accessed to connect successfully.
While many people will be comfortable attaching to a WiFi network, some will need to learn how to do this on their phone. Having volunteers available to help will ensure a smoother experience for them.
There is also the possibility that certain phones will not connect to some networks. While this is a rare occurrence, the probability goes up if you have 200+ devices to connect. Ideally, the participant can fall back on cellular data or texting. Providing kiosk mode bidding devices also gives them a way to participate.
Clients & Bandwidth
The question of how many clients the network supports and the bandwidth required are related but should be considered separately.
Bandwidth is generally not the bottleneck, assuming you have a 10MBps+ connection and your guests only use the WiFi for the event and not streaming videos! Most venues with a reasonable broadband connection should be fine here.
IMPORTANT
At 10-20MB+ per download, 200 participants would total 4GB+ of data or around an hour of a maxed-out 10Mbps connection, but only 6 minutes for 100Mbps.
The number of clients the WiFi network can support is often more challenging, especially for non-commercial networks.
At the extreme end, a church hall with a few residential-class WiFi access points will not support 100+ participants. Residential-class hardware is unlikely to reliably support more than 10-20 clients per access point.
A school set up to provide WiFi access to its students will generally be fine since it will be scaled to support hundreds of devices. However, it is worth confirming with the IT department that having all the devices clustered in one area would be supported rather than spread out over the campus.
The challenge with these questions is that the situation can only be tested after. Ideally, the group responsible for the network will have experienced a similar situation in the past to know how it performs, or at least will know from capacity planning if the network can handle it.
Firewalls and Filtering
No special firewall rules are needed for mobile website or app bidding. The usual access used to browse the web is fine. However, if a network has filtering, you should confirm that this doesn't interfere with Auctria.
This is generally fine for mobile bidding. Still, if, for example, participants are using the Facebook sign-in feature and the network has blocked Facebook, then that won't work.
WiFi Hotspots
Using a WiFi hotspot as a backup internet connection to run the event is great for your staff and volunteers.
A single phone can quickly provide WiFi to 5-10 clients to allow them to record bids, run checkout, etc. However, it is unsuitable for mobile bidding as it will need more connections to work.
Last reviewed: June 2023