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

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#181

Post by seanmcdirmid » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 11:58 AM UTC

maccard wrote: post #171

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Good resorts in Thailand are at least $200+ a night, though you can get beachside bungalows in Koh Chang for $40/night.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#182

Post by wtallis » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 12:07 PM UTC

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

It looks to me like that only clearly applies to unauthorized access to programs and data stored on a computer. Unauthorized routing of packets through a computer is not obviously covered by that law.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#183

Post by justincormack » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 12:24 PM UTC

einrealist wrote: post #177

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.

Traffic shaping for some definition of fairness?

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#184

Post by cal2 » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 12:43 PM UTC

TimJRobinson wrote: post #176

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 noti…

I really need to educate myself further about these sorts of things. Great tip, much appreciated!

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#185

Post by einrealist » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 12:45 PM UTC

justincormack wrote: post #183

einrealist wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Traffic shaping for some definition of fairness?

They say that the traffic is shaped. But it does not feel like that. Maybe their router is just to slow to handle all those connections.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#186

Post by dec0dedab0de » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 1:22 PM UTC

TimJRobinson wrote: post #176

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 noti…

xxx being between 50 - 200

You're probably better off with a lower number that would likely be outside of the dhcp pool. It's fairly standard to set aside the first 5-20 addresses for future network equipment.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#187

Post by ytjohn » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 1:23 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.

I always have an access point and wire with me when I travel because of this, but Marriot and Hilton hotels I've visited in the last year did not have working wired Internet, despite having the port built into the desk.

A Marriot in Seattle gave me link but no address. I followed the ethernet cable behind the desk to a DSL style modem that connected to the hotel's phone system. I checked it out and essentially, instead of running Cat5 wire, they re-used the phone lines and were basically doing in-house DSL to each room. I called the front desk and was told that they had discontinued their wired internet.

Other Marriots and Hiltons I've tried since didn't even have the little device there, just a sad ethernet cable hanging down from the desk.

Thankfully, my current job provides a hotspot, so most of the time I just use that. The cost of the room and wifi don't bother, it's the fact that the speeds are horrible during non-peak times and non-existant during peak times.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#188

Post by JohnTHaller » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 1:57 PM UTC

Better tip: Just bring your own hotspot. If you're a frequent traveler, your life will be SO much better. If you're not a frequent traveler, using the hotspot feature on your phone and paying for it just that month (if you don't already) is often faster and cheaper than a couple days of hotel paid wifi.

Hotel wifi is spotty and incredibly insecure compared to a wireless hotspot.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#189

Post by mmmcm » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 2:05 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…

This is true. I worked for a global telecoms company with hotel groups as customers for several years. It was shocking how slow some of their connections were, and expensive too.

Re: Choose hotels by the quality of their WiFi

#190

Post by CSMastermind » Fri, Jul 25, 2014, 2:08 PM UTC

TimJRobinson wrote: post #176

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 noti…

Just note this probably won't work in the US. Most hotels here do not use a Class C subnet unless it's a shitty motel running off of a linksys router.