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Wireless goliath bankrolls wireless-free super-hackfest in Blighty

Telefonica switches to wired LAN for Campus Party London

Campuseros* and technology entrepreneurs will be gathering in London come September, for a week of talks, workshops and general tech worship - but there'll be no wireless, despite sponsorship from mobile network giant Telefonica.

The event is the famous annual tech fest and LAN party, Campus Party, which has been running since 1997 (based in Spain for the first decade). Campus Party London is hoping to bring 10,000 tech-heads together at the O2 Arena and will be providing tents and hack space to everyone who attends, but no Wi-Fi as CAT-5 is the technology of choice.

The lack of wireless is, apparently, down to the expected density of devices. Each person attending will get an Ethernet socket and a power point, and all will be banned from bringing wireless routers to the site.

Last year's event in Berlin was generally well-regarded, but similar rules were criticised for making the event "boring, loveless and devoid of passion" as regimented rows of tents and an alcohol ban prevented the spontaneous creativity such events are supposed to engender.

But for a price somewhere around a hundred quid (last year was €128, this year's pricing to be announced) attendees will get a week of talks and presentations, games and social networking. We don't yet know who will be headlining but previous speakers include Neil Armstrong and Steve Wozniak, so the bar is quite high and we're promised live music this time around too.

Telefonica is certainly very excited about the whole thing, and announced the date by erecting a dozen tents atop the dome of the O2 Arena in order to claim "highest festival in Britain" with photos of 15 fun-loving youth dancing to a pair of laptops. Here at Vulture Towers we're not the kind to boast, but we would claim to have been a lot higher than that at a festival or two. ®

* Campus Party participants - hackers, devs, gamers... plus the usual suspects

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