There really is no need for all NANOG meetings to have the same format.
In fact, if we accept the idea of varying formats, then some of the cost
issues
can be tamed. For instance, one full meeting, one regional meeting, and
one
special-focus meeting per year. The full meeting could be the one that is
done
in conjunction with ARIN in a major center with full free networking, beer
and gear
etc.
The regional meeting would be in a smaller city with the expectation that
the
majority of attendees are from the local area and don't have access to big
travel
budgets. And the special focus meetings would target some specific topic
and
pick a location to match. Some of the regional and special focus meetings
would
not supply comprehensive free Internet access. If Internet access is
available
people would pay for it and expect bandwidth limitations and higher than
normal
latency. Depends on the location.
Here are some exotic locations that could work with a special focus.
Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut is rather exotic. The native language is
neither English nor French nor Spanish. It has the issues of remoteness
and reliance on satellite telecommunications.
New Orleans has dealt dramatically with disaster recovery and rebuilding
infrastructure. It is exotic because it is still in the process of
rebuilding unlike most American cities.
St. John's, Newfoundland - a British colony until 1949 when it joined
Canada, this is located on a large island, has a history in trans-atlantic
telecommunications and still has a certain amount of undersea fiber
connectivity.
Montpelier, Vermont is the smallest state capital in the USA, located in
the Vermont,New Hampshire, Maine area which is rather more rural than the
average in the USA as well as being somewhat mountainous terrain.
If you don't count New Orleans before Katrina, I'd guess that well over
90% of NANOGers have never been to any of these four cities.
Other special focus areas might be:
Government and the Internet, Government and IPv6 - Washington DC.
The Research Community and the Internet - Ann Arbor MI
Network Security from a Military Viewpoint - Sierra Vista AZ near US
Army's CECOM-ISEC headquarters
Strategic Aspects of Network Security - Harrisburg PA not far from US Army
War College Strategic Studies Institute in nearby Carlisle
The idea of regional meetings is mainly to have a scaled down NANOG to
reach a much wider audience that does not have a large conference travel
budget. This is rather similar to RIPE's meetings in Qatar, Moscow,
Bahrain, Nairobi and Tallinn.
The idea of special focus meetings is to do something entirely new,
perhaps redefining the NANOG role and audience in the process. It is clear
that the traditional NANOG audience is shrinking because the traditional
Internet provider has been mostly replaced by larger general
telecommunications providers. The same old topics and same old restricted
set of participants doesn't have enough future potential to keep NANOG
running in the long term. Special focus meetings can help bring in new
blood.