Bandwidth On The Run

from the not-good-enough-yet! dept

I was recently complaining about how incredibly difficult it was to find broadband access in a hotel when I had to travel to Washington DC a few weeks ago. Today I booked a hotel for a trip I need to take next month. I called up this fancy (and expensive) hotel and asked the woman if they offered high speed internet access in the room. She said "oh yes, of course!". I asked for details and discovered (as I expected) she thought that the little "dataports" in their phones were what I was looking for. This is a huge problem. Very few hotels seem to think it's important to offer high speed internet access of any kind. So, while David Coursey talks about how it's becoming easier and easier to connect from the road, I don't think it's anywhere near where it needs to be. And, my experience over the past month or so has shown that most hotels don't seem to think it's a priority. From my perspective, if I'm travelling on business, whether or not a hotel has high speed internet access (preferably wireless) in the rooms can make the decision concerning where I'll stay. I don't think that's totally out of the ordinary (Coursey says the same thing in his column). Why don't most hotels realize this?
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  1. identicon
    John Bartley, 26 Mar 2002 @ 10:30am

    High-Speed Hotel Blues?

    Well, pardon me for finding a silver cloud in the grey lining, but somebody with more time and resources I have could create an on-line travel agency which appeals to the Wired.

    The Truth Is Out There as to which hotels have broadband, and I for one would pay a little more for a travel agent, 800-connected if not online, who will tell me which hotels have it. Sounds like a wonderful opportunity for a travel agent that's on the beach right now to differentiate themself.

    1-866-GET2NET, anyone?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    Mike (profile), 26 Mar 2002 @ 11:06am

    Re: High-Speed Hotel Blues?

    There is the Geektels site that supposedly lists hotels that have high speed access - but I found it to be out of date.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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