Subject: [Venue-selection] Ottawa

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 02 Apr 2017 21:56:50 -0400

Hi, I live in Ottawa.
I've been to 50+ IETF meetings.

Ottawa is unpredictable, but generally unpleasant in March.
July can be regularly rather hot (40C with humidex) and November is
predictably unpleasant.   When it's nice, though, it's really nice.
A meeting in early April or early November (crossing Oct. 31st..) would work
better than March or late November.  We have numerous festivals in June/July
which also fill the hotels.

While Ottawa is a government town, and we have enough total hotels and
conference space to have an IETF meeting, the hotels are regularly booked.
Having a meeting when the government is sitting is likely very difficult.  As
we are supposed to now have fixed election dates (October), it may be easier
to predict.   They generally do not sit in the summer.

I think that the only hotel with close to enough space is the Conference Center
and/or Westin.   That hotel also has the Rideau center attached with generous
food courts, and the market nearby for more sophisticated foods.  There are
a few really near hotels (Novotel) which are more economical.  If in July,
University of Ottawa is spitting distance and rents their residences out.

I don't think the university could host the IETF meetings, but it's certainly
hosted a number of smaller conferences (bsdcan, pgcon, the Ottawa IPv6
summit) which were in the ~500 person size.  I don't know that there is a
room big enough for the plenary there, but they do have some 800 person
auditoriums, and lots and lots of good networking.

It is possible the Minto (at the western edge of downtown) would have
sufficed, but I see that it is now a long-stay hotel.
There is also now conference space in Kanata (the Brookstone), out near the
Newbridge buildings (now Alcatel-Lucent...).  The hotel and space is likely
big enough, but it's total and complete suburbia: no restaurants for dinner,
etc. Avoid. Avoid.

We open our deep-deep LRT tunnel in 2018, but it does not connect to the
airport.  It does/will connect to the train station though, connecting
directly to Uottawa and Westin/RideauCenter.

However: Ottawa has a pitiful oversized cathedral airport.
We have a bunch of expensive direct flights from US cities using turbo props,
and some daily Frankfurt connections.   Westjet also flies direct from
Calgary, and Vancouver, but doesn't have a lot of partners, they use real
airplanes though.  Air Canada from Toronto or Montreal on a code-share will
wind up being the default choice for most.

I personally fly to Europe from Montreal and I take the train
Ottawa<->Montreal, and the bus if I must (last train is 7pm ish).   This will
be a bit like Maastrich (which I missed), except worse, because we have a
totally crappy train system, even compared to Amtrak.

Bandwidth-wise, it may also be difficult to make things work since our
Duopoly is clueless.  But since this will likely be 2-3 years in the future,
I think that the plans to grow the local IX might help.  The last mile could
be very annoying to arrange.

If you want to try another city in Canada, Calgary would be a better choice.
It's similar sized, cooler in the summer, and is a major airline hub for
Air Canada, with direct connections from many many more places.

My experience with living in Helsinki is that it will be similar to Ottawa
for transportation to the city.  But significantly better once you get there.

--
Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>, Sandelman Software Works
 -= IPv6 IoT consulting =-