In case you were wondering, the time of year is quickly approaching where wireless geeks unite and come together at the annual WirelessLAN Professionals US conference (#WLPC) in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, I said geeks, but only with the highest regard as this is one of the most well regarded, wireless only conferences in the world!

World? That’s correct. I said world, as this year Keith Parsons (founder of WirelessLAN Professionals) has set an ambitious goal of not 1, not 2, but 6 WLPC events around the globe this year.

It should go without saying that the conference has been a success, after seeing the continued growth into new regions and how quickly the conference slots sell out. The sheer amount of wireless knowledge presented at this conference is astounding and I was excited to attend my first WLPC last year to experience it first hand and see the knowledge transfer in person. The amazing part about this conference is that it is not the typical vendor sponsored conference where you are bored to tears with sales presentations, but the presenters are everyday people and fellow wireless engineers/administrators that have often been in those same situations as you see yourself facing daily. The mutual respect by all attendees to listen and learn from others, and grow as a wireless professional is humbling to say the least. If all this worries you, don’t be worried! Everyone is at different levels in their knowledge/career, and I promise you that EVERYONE can gain something from this conference.

This year’s conference looks to be even bigger and better than previous years, with all new bootcamp offerings covering topics such as 3D printing (Robert Boardman), Advanced ECSE (Blake Krone), and Python (Jake Snyder & Ryan Adzima) in addition to the previous offerings of the CWNP classes (CWNA, CWAP, CWDP, CWSP) and Cisco offerings. The bootcamps alone are worth the price of admission for this conference, but if that wasn’t enough to get your brain going, there’s more! An expanded “deep dive” session schedule includes WLAN Penetration Testing (Lee Badman), Real World Mobile WLAN Testing (Jerry Olla & Scott McDermott), and Using SDR for 802.11 (Bastian Bloessl) to name a few that promise to provide that “information overload” feeling that everyone has come to expect. Even yours truly will be presenting this year, during a Ten-Talk on Wednesday afternoon discussing polarizing figures in wireless!

Be sure to check out twitter throughout the bootcamps (Feb 17-19), and most importantly the conference (Feb 20-22) using the hashtag #WLPC for all the action as it happens, live from Phoenix! And if you like what you see, be sure to check back with the WLAN Pros site often for upcoming registrations to the rest of the 2018 schedule, or in Nov/Dec to register for WLPC 2019 in the US.

-Scott