Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi • Hacker News Board

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#71

Post by mpwn » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:45 PM UTC

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

we had this exact convo @ lunch today. The worst is the double charge for "Turbo" bandwidth. No one charges for bathrooms why charge for WiFi the incremental cost per user is less.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#72

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:51 PM UTC

janjongboom wrote: post #18

While the WiFi in most hotels is horrendous, wired internet is pretty awesome most of the time. A network cable is always in my suitcase and my laptop can run as an access point for my other devices. A separate access point could also come in handy (you have very small ones nowadays). During JSDay.it people had a lot of time even connecting to the WiFi while I was running at 80 mbps.

Sadly I staid in a room the other day where the wired jack just lead to a wall-wart 802.11 bridge. Needless to say, it wasn't faster than the wifi.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#73

Post by sanswork » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:51 PM UTC

codex_irl wrote: post #57

sanswork wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile hotspots are good but expensive. My wife and I have been working/living off one for the past 6 weeks and we're averaging around $100/week on internet costs even with extremely limiting our usage.

How much data are you consuming? $100 a week!! If you are in a Virgin Mobile (Sprint) 4G area with coverage - then buy one of their hotspots (used on ebay to save $$$), $5 a day buys you all the data you can eat & it stays fast. You can connect more than 2 devices. Save $86 a week. Alternativly, get on Verizons pre-paid plan: $45 a month for unlimited voice & text, subscribe to auto-pay & you get 1GB a month for free…

A bit over 10Gigs a week between two people with a Verizon mifi.

Virgin would give us around 1.7gigs per week at the $5/day. It would be more expensive at our levels.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#74

Post by dbecker » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:52 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #55

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

> Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst. The people that stay in these hotels normally aren't paying for the rooms (business trips for instance), so the company will pay the cost of the wifi for the duration of the stay without question

I used to be a frequent business traveler... and while I didn't mind the charge, poor speed/reliability was enough to avoid a hotel on future visits.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#75

Post by terhechte » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:55 PM UTC

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

Oftentimes, the reason for this is that those hotels were particularly early in offering their guests internet access but then bought into a draconian external service provider with awful service, high fees, very long contract duration, and slow speed. Usually, when I'm in an expensive hotel with awful (paid) internet, I speak up and they explain this to me.

The last hotel where that happened explained to me that management bought into a internet contract in 2005 that will last until 2015 at which point they plan to simply rent their own DSL. But until then they're, by contract, obliged to offer their guests only their contract partners awfully slow internet.

Just like in business, small companies / hotels can move faster.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#76

Post by DigitalSea » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 9:55 PM UTC

This is brilliant. As a developer, whenever I have to travel somewhere, a decent connection for moving files around is paramount. You often see, "High Speed Internet" being advertised at most hotels, it is usually anything but high speed.

Speed is a crucial factor for me when staying somewhere. Nice hotels seem to focus on the service and aesthetics, but the poor old Wifi connection gets left behind.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#77

Post by Kittynana » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 10:05 PM UTC

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

Last time I was in San Jose, I was surprised by how terrible the WiFi was at the hotel I stayed at. You could tell most of the guests were programmers, yet I could barely get 96k. And I specifically asked for a room close to the router. I guess maybe the boom in Silicon Valley means hotels can fill rooms without having competitive WiFi?

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#78

Post by joeframbach » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 10:10 PM UTC

terhechte wrote: post #75

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

Oftentimes, the reason for this is that those hotels were particularly early in offering their guests internet access but then bought into a draconian external service provider with awful service, high fees, very long contract duration, and slow speed. Usually, when I'm in an expensive hotel with awful (paid) internet, I speak up and they explain this to me. The last hotel where that happened explained to me that man…

Here we see in a smaller scale what a lack of ISP competition does to a region. This is basically what many municipalities bought into in order to afford Comcast's infrastructure 15 years ago.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#79

Post by joeframbach » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 10:18 PM UTC

colinbartlett wrote: post #48

guelo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, we've moved on to the future, we're too cool to have laptops with useful ports anymore.

I know you're just joking, but the thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter I bought years ago has been worth it's weight in gold at hotels with slow wifi and fast wired.

Other things that have been worth their weight in gold while traveling: my thinkpad with built-in ethernet AND vga!

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#80

Post by ejr » Thu, Jul 24, 2014, 10:18 PM UTC

terhechte wrote: post #75

danielpal wrote: post #52

One thing that I noticed, is that the more expensive the hotel, the worst is the WiFI. Same applies when I have to pay for WiFI - the more I pay, the worst it is. I've found that 3 star hotels that offer free WiFI usually have the best speeds/service. Whereas 5 star hotels that usually charge $14.95 daily have the worst.

Oftentimes, the reason for this is that those hotels were particularly early in offering their guests internet access but then bought into a draconian external service provider with awful service, high fees, very long contract duration, and slow speed. Usually, when I'm in an expensive hotel with awful (paid) internet, I speak up and they explain this to me. The last hotel where that happened explained to me that man…

I can corroborate this. I did a network setup at a B&B that hadn't had any wi-fi since the place got internet.

We bumped up their ISP plan to proper business class and got an upgraded router to boot. I ran wire from it to each floor via existing conduit and set up APs. No middle-man slave master for internet and certainly anyone else can service the setup after I was done. No other contract except their ISP. Everyone was happy.

A neighbouring place just a few turns away had wireless quite early from some archaic monster and they charge a hefty fee too. I have better reception on my cell when I'm in a low valley than at that place - 2 bars max. All the guests were huddled in the lobby.