They give it an Extreme Wi-Fi Makeover.

The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which sets a range of Internet standards, gathers for its 83rd meeting this week in Paris. The jam-packed is filled with reports, presentations, and meetings of working groups, researchers, and birds-of-a-feather confabs. Among the topics: Multiparty Multimedia Session Control; Operational Capabilities for IP Network Infrastructure; and Worthwhile Extensible Internet Registration Data Service.

Despite it being springtime in Paris, such an agenda adds up to a lot of work for IETFers, all of whom also have their "day jobs" with a blue chip list of technology companies around the world. And that means that one thing that is even more important than a visit to Disneyland Paris (the No.2 most popular destination after ) is a hotel Wi-Fi network that works.

Flakey Wi-Fi, getting flakier

But as attendees began discovering on arrival last Sunday at the toney and towering , close by the historic Champs-Elysees, the Wi-Fi was flakey and became flakier still as scores more attendees arrived and tried to connect.