Checking In Requires Logging In
The NYT has an article dealing with a topic that has had me scratching my head for some time. Why is there such a wide disparity between hotels and their internet service?
They say:
Five years ago, the main challenge for data-hungry business travelers was finding a hotel that offered high-speed Internet access. Then came a shift to wireless and even free connections.
But these days, the top priority for many is simply getting consistent, reliable access to the Internet, regardless of the cost or type of connection. That, it turns out, is not as easy as one might think.
About 5 years ago, I stayed in a hotel in Medford, Oregon that had wifi. It wasn't uniform, but it existed. It was free. Free, in the middle of nowhere.
This last year I stayed at the Lowe's in Philly and the Marco Polo Gateway in Hong Kong. Both required me to spend over $10 a day for internet access. Both had a tiny 3' Cat-5 cable sticking out of the wall. Forcing me to sit in the uncomfortable desk chair for hours on end. The Lowes Cat-5 was so short it forced my computer to sit at a 45 degree angle at the back of the desk.
Oddly, as many biz travelers know, the worst hotels have the best Internet service. It's usually free. It's usually Wifi.
One of the better services I had was in Orange County where the hotel had very powerful Wifi and gave me a login and password that lasted until I checked out. I could use it anywhere in the hotel, but the network was still relatively secure. That was rare for a nice hotel.
Mostly, it's the Holiday Inn Expresses or similar that have good, free and painless wifi. But if I'm going somewhere for a few weeks, I don't want to stay in a Holiday Inn Express. However, I've taken to calling hotels before my trip and asking them what they mean by "Internet" in their list of amenities.
Blogged at my house in Seattle with Live Writer
Creekside Inn in Palo Alto has good free wifi -- using it consistently these days to do SightSpeed video dinner calls with the wife and kids.
Posted by: Bryan Zug | 19 December 2006 at 13:12
I found that the combination of internet access, pool, and free breakfast managed to be a good filter when looking for places to stay on my last vacation (around Lake Michigan with the family). These were each one night stays, and we ended up planning mostly from the road one or two nights ahead of where we were going to stay next.
Posted by: Edward | 19 December 2006 at 21:03
Bryan! How often are you flying down?
Ed ... you have found the algorithm of the perfect stay. When I did that drive in 1988 I could only go by what sign I saw from the highway. That was a _bad_ methodology.
Posted by: Jim Benson | 19 December 2006 at 22:15
yeah, it worked out pretty well. We managed to hit the only good restaurant in Green Bay, Wisconsin along the way.
A friend traveled cross-country without a master plan, relying on a big mailing list assembled for the purpose to guide her with recommendations two or three days ahead. We got entertaining field reports from the road in exchange for our recommendations.
In contrast, my latest weekend family journey (five people, three locations, several handoffs timed down to the minute) required a four page planning document to cover 72 hours.
There's some untapped market for the "itinerary planner" decision support system, the systematic approach to making sure that you have enough meals, accomodations, travel arrangements and reimbursement documents all organized together so that the actual trip is easy.
Posted by: Edward | 20 December 2006 at 11:25
That system also needs to let you take toothpaste on your carry on....
Posted by: Jim Benson | 20 December 2006 at 14:47