Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

hotelwifitest.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 240 posts

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#171

Post by maccard »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #110
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

5 star hotels aren't really for most business travels though. I mean, if you are an exec ya, but usually you just get a 4 star Hilton at best. 5 star hotels are for rich people who won't notice. 5 star resorts usually ding you for lots of things, its how they make money (travelling next week to Thailand, psychologically prepared but at least the internet is free).

> 5 star hotels aren't really for most business travels though. I mean, if you are an exec ya, but usually you just get a 4 star Hilton at best. 5 star hotels are for rich people who won't notice.

Ah, I know that. (WEll actually, I don't. Ive never stayed in a 5 star hotel before). but, I was just making the point.

> 5 star resorts usually ding you for lots of things, its how they make money (travelling next week to Thailand, psychologically prepared but at least the internet is free).

Thailand is fine for that. I stayed there last year, (around this time) for about a month, and stayed in 4 star accomodation most of the time for less than 30 bucks a night (euro) for two people, and we always got breakfast, wifi, and towels. My advice is book one night in a hotel, and go in to the reception and ask how much it is to stay on. You'll normally get 3-400 baht off.

Now I want to go back to thailand..

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#173

Post by lucian1900 »

Larrikin wrote: post #143
konspence wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An external ethernet dongle is more likely to break or get lost. Sure, but it's replaceable for the cheap cost of ~$10 - 20. > There's no VGA port either which is a necessity for me. 2007 called, they want their already-deprecated video standards back. > No CD drive either. 2000 called, they want their already-deprecated media storage standards back. >Is this thing a laptop or a big smartphone with no touch screen?…

Personally I think its absolutely ridiculous I paid $3000 for my Mac Book pro and I don't have a numpad with crucial keys like home, end, page up and down because they wanted the the track pad in the center. My old vaio laptop that was the same size fit the numpad just fine. I ended up buying having to buy one just because I was much slower at programming without it.

Cmd + direction keys work just fine.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#174

Post by izacus »

zevyoura wrote: post #50
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 realize this is a joke, but if it's a reference to Apple laptops, it's worth noting that an ethernet plug literally will not fit on recent models of the Macbook Pro or Air; they're simply too narrow. I'd much prefer a narrower portable to an ethernet port; when I need one I'm happy to use a dongle.

Note that e.g. ASUS Zenbooks come with USB3 gigabit ethernet adapters (in a rather neat branded bag) included to combat that.

Apple will charge something absurd for their adapter.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#176

Post by TimJRobinson »

Tip for travellers: Learn how to set a static IP address on your devices. I've been travelling through South East asia for the last 3 months and at about 20 - 30% of the hotels I stay at the WiFi works fine but their DHCP does not. I presume this is because most routers in default config cache IP address for clients and when they run out of free IP address they just fail to assign new ones to new clients. If you notice the wifi works but your computer or phone times out when connecting set your ip settings as below:

IP Address: 192.168.1.xxx (xxx being between 50 - 200) Netmask: 255.255.255.0 Gateway: 192.168.1.1 DNS: 192.168.1.1

This has worked for me in 90% of cases and you get your own private WiFi (as none of the other guests can access it ;)). There was one place I stayed at in hanoi where I got my own 90Mbps / 40Mbps connection due to nobody else being able to get on.

Sometimes the ip is 192.168.0.xxx and on rare occasions it's been 10.0.0.xxx.

I've tried to help hotels fix this issue as I go but it seems most either get some tech to setup their router or plug it in and keep the default settings (sooo many places have 'admin' as their router password) and don't know how to fix it.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#177

Post by einrealist »

bduerst wrote: post #13

I used to do consulting and traveled 100%. The term "High Speed Internet" is a common misnomer with Hotels, and was a bane of my existence, because it typically meant > 56k but These were with Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton hotels, mind you. If aggregaters like Hipmunk could incorporate this speed data, the way that they have with in-flight wifi, then hopefully there will be a push to improve this standard.

My current (small) hotel has a 100 Mbit uplink. But even that becomes congested in the evening. I heard from guests who use Bittorrent, because the uplink is fast.

So a faster uplink does not mean, that you get fast internet. People are just selfish and greedy.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#178

Post by gambiting »

peteretep wrote: post #159
wtallis wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good thing you're not a lawyer, because it's certainly illegal in the UK... http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/18

Good thing there are other countries in the world apart from UK and US.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#179

Post by weiran »

michaelt wrote: post #166
paulfurtado wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just googled 'apple ethernet' and got the UK apple store page for their USB ethernet adaptor[1]. It costs £25 (US$42, so this isn't some cheap junk), and of the twelve reviews, six give it one star and two give it two stars. The point of using ethernet in preference to wifi is to get the dependability of battle-tested 30 year old technology; and using an ethernet dongle deprives you of that. [1] http://store.apple.…

The new Thunderbolt version which works like a native port at full gigabit speed.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#180

Post by yaro2 »

coroxout wrote: post #22
yaro2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

brokentone, what is quality in your opinion? Is it connection speed? If it is more complex than that, what would be the best way to quantify it? Most hotels offer free WiFi, so it is easy to skip hotels with paid WiFi. We will add more filters (including this one) soon.

"Most hotels offer free WiFi" This may be true in the US but I don't think it's necessarily true in Europe. Too many hotels in the UK/Ireland claim to offer "internet access" which turns out to mean no wifi (or mysteriously permanently broken wifi) and one ancient PC in reception which nobody can tell you the password for. Germany was better for wifi but often had paid wifi in the rooms and free wifi only in receptio…

Sounds familiar... On hotelwifitest.com "Free WiFi" means free WiFi in guest rooms. If it is not a case for some hotels, please let the support know!
Post reply on HN