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Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

hotelwifitest.com

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Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#111

Post by JadeNB »

DanBC wrote: post #106
dheera wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once in a Marriott that gave free Wi-Fi to Apple devices and charged all other devices. I didn't know about the Apple deal till a colleague on the same trip told me he was getting it free on his Macbook Pro. Needless to say, I spoofed my MAC address and User Agent and got it free as well. Not sure which one it was actually checking, but probably the latter. Anyway, something to be aware of.

Good tip but is it sensible to admit to several criminal offences on a public forum?

Surely spoofing the user agent is unobjectionable at worst, and spoofing the MAC address perhaps only mildly discouraged? I can't imagine its actually being illegal (but, then again, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_piggybacking for unexpected illegalities).

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#112

Post by seanmcdirmid »

alister wrote: post #97
colinbartlett wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am really surprised to hear Brazil is far removed from backbones, being the most populous Latin American county by a massive margin.

Brazil is far from the economic center of the Internet. South Korea, a country with 1/4 of the population of Brazil, is probably better connected because it's on the route to Japan, China, etc. Brazil's poor latency may be partly explained by the fact that a lot of their connections have to go through the US and Canada: "The shape of the Internet varies considerably when examining individual regions. In Europe, the m…

> South Korea, a country with 1/4 of the population of Brazil, is probably better connected because it's on the route to Japan, China, etc.

Why would proximity to China matter? They probably have the worst internet in Asia (outside of DPRK of course).

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#113

Post by cnst »

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

That kinda depends on the company policy. I'm a systems software engineer; I've had a fly-in interview with Goldman Sachs in NYC in 2010 from grad school (I was cold-called by a third-party recruiter company through LinkedIn or something), Goldman has placed me in Embassy Suites next door to their office -- supposedly, they even own the whole hotel. The internet was 9,95, and I was explicitly told that they won't pay [to their own hotel] for my internet. (The hotel stay itself was billed directly to their account, but internet access was excluded.)

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#114

Post by jimmaswell »

zevyoura wrote: post #98
jimmaswell wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd much prefer a narrower portable to an ethernet port Why? How in the world is a standard laptop with an ethernet too "thick" for you? Do you routinely try to slide your laptops under doors or through mail slots? Making laptops ridiculously thin doesn't solve anything except making them look thinner.

Thickness generally has a very strong correlation with weight. Weight is probably the single most important factor in a laptop for me. I didn't realize how much of a difference it made until I switched to an Air.

I'm dangerously out of shape and carrying around my laptop bag with >10lbs of stuff in it doesn't bother me. Functionality is worth the weight unless you're averse to carrying a few extra pounds I guess.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#115

Post by wtallis »

DanBC wrote: post #106
dheera wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once in a Marriott that gave free Wi-Fi to Apple devices and charged all other devices. I didn't know about the Apple deal till a colleague on the same trip told me he was getting it free on his Macbook Pro. Needless to say, I spoofed my MAC address and User Agent and got it free as well. Not sure which one it was actually checking, but probably the latter. Anyway, something to be aware of.

Good tip but is it sensible to admit to several criminal offences on a public forum?

Literally every browser out there sends a user agent that is in some way lying. Anyone trying to authenticate based on a user agent is a victim only of their own stupidity, not any sort of crime by their guests.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#116

Post by spydum »

Kittynana wrote: post #77
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?

Could it simply be higher ratio of bandwidth hungry wireless consumers just saturating their reasonable network?

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#117

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

cnst wrote: post #113
maccard wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

That kinda depends on the company policy. I'm a systems software engineer; I've had a fly-in interview with Goldman Sachs in NYC in 2010 from grad school (I was cold-called by a third-party recruiter company through LinkedIn or something), Goldman has placed me in Embassy Suites next door to their office -- supposedly, they even own the whole hotel. The internet was 9,95, and I was explicitly told that they won't pay…

You could panhandle for ten the bucks. OTOH, no company that expects a person to read or send an email, or do any other internet-ish thing can expect their employees to subsidize their business while on a business trip.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#118

Post by paulfurtado »

jimmaswell wrote: post #114
zevyoura wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thickness generally has a very strong correlation with weight. Weight is probably the single most important factor in a laptop for me. I didn't realize how much of a difference it made until I switched to an Air.

I'm dangerously out of shape and carrying around my laptop bag with >10lbs of stuff in it doesn't bother me. Functionality is worth the weight unless you're averse to carrying a few extra pounds I guess.

What do you have against external ethernet adapters? I don't see how requiring an external ethernet adapter is a worse trade off than adding extra pounds and size.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#119

Post by btgeekboy »

guelo wrote: post #36
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.

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

Get an Airport Express that supports the 5Ghz band, and set it up to be a bridge. Best of both worlds.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#120

Post by shiven »

DanBC wrote: post #106
dheera wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once in a Marriott that gave free Wi-Fi to Apple devices and charged all other devices. I didn't know about the Apple deal till a colleague on the same trip told me he was getting it free on his Macbook Pro. Needless to say, I spoofed my MAC address and User Agent and got it free as well. Not sure which one it was actually checking, but probably the latter. Anyway, something to be aware of.

Good tip but is it sensible to admit to several criminal offences on a public forum?

You forgot the tag.
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