Comments on: How to Deal with Managed Hotel Internet Access

By: HarryH

HarryH — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:02:59 +0000

I travel – a lot. Most hotels could care less what bandwidth I use or what I do. But WiFi is a shared medium so bandwidth, by definition, is constrained by the number of users. I have more issues with the authentication scripts. At one Holiday Inn, the scripts under IE caused Antiv to get upset with a lot of alerts that had to be acknowledged. Firefox was less troublesome. But the authentication periodically reappeared interrupting whatever I was doing.

I can recall one hotel that ‘was changing wireless providers’ so I was forced into using dial-up. I keep a cheap dial-up ISP on-hand for such events. Dial-up is much cheaper than any 3G plan I’ve seen. The backup has proved itself more than once when the hotel’s WiFi was screwed up.

By: woody

woody — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:54:30 +0000

i agree with JP HOLECKA , I said wow that S?CKS HE’S P?ST

By: TheSlimJim

TheSlimJim — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 02:49:12 +0000

I remember one hotel, our internet connection got jacked, but not because of bandwidth. I decided that I would try to play Halo online, but that would involve using GameSpy Arcade to connect online. Well, the hotel saw the name GameSpy trying to connect online somehow and jacked the connection because they figured it to likely be spyware only because of the “Spy” in GameSpy. Oh well.

By: JP Holecka

JP Holecka — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:28:57 +0000

I love the video last week! The expression on your face was priceless! I am glad that you did take the time to clarify the experience in this post though.

Nice work.

By: theretrometro

theretrometro — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 21:15:06 +0000

When I first saw the video I felt your frustration. While my issues weren’t with bandwidth that I know of – I will have to ask next time – I had a bunch of educational media to upload to BlackBoard while at a convention. I either couldn’t stay connected or my connection to the room was cut. One of the main reasons as I understood it was that there was construction in my wing.

Glad to see things turned out well after all. You got a bottle of wine…Nice!

By: Shockaslim

Shockaslim — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:24:11 +0000

Thats a major bummer. I have dealt with some really bad situations though. I stayed at a hotel once where the power was out for 8 hours and no one understood what happened. There were also roaches in some rooms, and some kids got robbed of their clothes and money. Maybe you should sort these things out before you go? Ive never seen that problem so I really dont know what to do.

By: Mickey

Mickey — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 18:21:30 +0000

I’ve never had an issues with my internet connection in regards to bandwidth usage at hotels. More than once I simply found myself dealing with just overall slow WiFi and spotty wired connections

By: JohnColesUK

JohnColesUK — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 17:38:14 +0000

Chris shouldn’t it be:
“the staff are” or “were friendly” rather than the staff is friendly?

By: Chris Utley

Chris Utley — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 14:01:19 +0000

Don’t forget the cheese!

By: OmniDragon

OmniDragon — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 13:38:13 +0000

I think that that hotel needs to get more bandwidth from their ISP because if a guy can’t even upload ONE video to youtube without getting cut off for using too much bandwidth, that’s a problem. Either that or they need to redo their “filters”.

By: Thomas McGrath

Thomas McGrath — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:16:50 +0000

I work for a 311 room hotel near Orlando, FL. Over the past few years, We’ve noticed a steady increase in guests who expect internet access. Unfortunately, as with most tech things, the need tends to outstrip the infrastructure, and when we do get the ok to expand, it’s not long before we’re right back on the bad side again.
If you are going to be doing more than checking email and a bit of web browsing, it’s usually a good idea to contact the hotel before you book the room, to find out who their provider is, and what usage policy is in place. In most cases if you’re going to exceed their limits, they can re-provision the bandwith to accomodate, but they will probably charge you for this.

By: Ian D. Nock

Ian D. Nock — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:15:37 +0000

Rage contained…

Looking at this another way, would the hotel turn off the power to your room because you use too much of it? Would the hotel turn off the TV because you watched it too much?

Thankful that 3G services are pretty good in the UK compared to the US, so I have never had to…

By: Michael McCune

Michael McCune — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:27:02 +0000

That’s why I carry a 3G card as a backup internet connection. Hotel Internet access is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.

By: jwire4

jwire4 — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:10:12 +0000

Very nice post. I too have had horrible experiences with hotels and internet connectivity, A quick tip for people is to check reviews on the hotel. I made sure to also check how good the internet connectivity was too :) Do your research!