WiFi was pretty terrible for quite a while after it came out in general. I remember, in the early to mid 2000s, the Intel Developers Forums had desks set up to try to help press and analysts get, often plug-in PCMCIA card, WiFi working. And it was almost certain to fall over during general sessions anyway--well some things mostly don't change.

But if you actually needed a working network connection in the press room, you plugged an Ethernet cable into your laptop.