[Anonymous]

[viking01]

…. well, at least, what I hate about it’s provision when you are travelling….

Rip-off pricing

I don’t mind paying for a service, and I’m well aware that hotels that offer ‘free’ wifi are simply bundling it into the price of the room, but if I’m paying £200 a night room only, why then am I charged anything from £9.99 to £24.99 for 24 hours wifi access? Answer: loads of reasons: different providers, different contracts, different management policies of the various hotel chains, different prediction as to what I’m prepared to pay etc…

None of which I care about. I’m the customer and in most places, I’m being ripped off. Why doesn’t someone compile a list of hotels which offer it for free (I know about the Radissons) and we can all just stay there until they are all forced to change

High speed should be high speed.

OK, so now I’ve paid for this premium service, and it’s not even high speed. In fact, at peak times of the day (early evening when everyone gets back to the room), there’s barely any strength to the signal at all. What’s the use in that? Someone sends me a PowerPoint attachment and I have to stay up all night waiting for it to download. My wifi at home is quicker, and that’s crap. Sort it out!

Technological support

And surely as part of that £20 per 24 hours, there should be a help line number that is manned and available. I don’t want to email someone and wait 24 hours for a reply. I’ll have checked out by then.

Hotel lobbies

Often the only free wifi is in the lobby, which is presumably why there’s no where decent to sit and balance the laptop on your knee. They want you to go back up to the room and pay for it.

Business centres

They used to be good, now they are rubbish – because we are all in our rooms trying to get the wifi to work

Different wired and wireless providers

This story is true. I pay for wired in the room, rip off price, but at least it’s fast. I come down to the meeting we are having in the hotel, use the wifi – different provider, and am charged for it. Complain, told we should have asked for it to be included in the price of the room hire. The wifi that is. We’d still have had to pay separately for the wired. The reason? Different providers. Nothing the hotel can do about it. ARE YOU KIDDING ? !

Roaming charges

So to save time, I buy a subscription to one of the wifi providers, and now instead of buying wifi by the hour if I manage to find a place that this service provider offers a wifi hotspot, I can get online. Sometimes they even have an agreement with some other provider, meaning I can still get online, though it takes a little longer. Not brilliant, but a start. At least it recognises me. Then I go abroad and I’m Mr Nobody again. Back to buying it at 7.5 Euros an hour. Why? If my mobile phone operator has organised reciprocal arrangements with overseas providers (albeit at outrageous prices), why can’t the wifi provider? It’s the World Wide Web, but for wifi, it stops at a national border.

[LoungeLizzard]

Er… you haven’t considered that maybe the problem is with you, rather than the wifi…. 😉

[Isabel07]

this is a brilliant summary of the consequences of totally inmature technologies to nowadays typical, frequent, business travellers: people like you and me travel: all the time, for business, across national borders, and we want to see enablement of our working needs! I am sure you agree there is economic logic behind this developments, even if its without considering the need of the customer: hotels need to make money and with increasing competition on room rates between them they simply try to recoup some profit from added-on services. now, in Europe – unlike the US for examples – the main markets have not demanded free WiFi – hence they can charge for it. unless you are committed to the few ones (as you suggest Radisson) there seem to be enough people around happy to pay for WIFI.
I can- in that case an advantage – leverage the service agreements of a large organisation, that has subscribed to “iPass”. i find this extremely valuable, as it covers most locations you generally travel to, across network providers, service providers and/or WiFi providers. it has a worldwide network of locations (including major hotel chains) where it pre-negotiated rates and those are available free of charge for subscribers. Don’t ask me what our company pays for this subscription, but it’s effortless for me.
still, i agree with you that wireless internet access should be available as clean water in public washrooms. only market forces (multiply you & myself by millions) can trigger that change.

[Isabel07]

an interesting article crossed my mind…which you might find interesting, too: Why the Internet can’t remain free, CIO Insider: http://www.cio.com/article/324963

[AussieM]

I have just travelled through The Middle East down to Sydney.

In the last few weeks, I have experienced wi fi on 4 continents. It varies from free to £35 per 24 hrs in hotels, even in an apartment /hotel, here in Sydney.
I agree with the comments entirely, & the structures of the pricing…per 24 hrs, only vaid for that 24hrs mostly, or one or 2 hours, not a set time but that has some periods of days to use it. They are awkward & meant to be so to maximise income.

So much or our commnications & our travel is dependant upon the connection now…whos doesnt check in on lne these days prior to a flight?

It really makes me more discerning to choose a hotel that has free wi fi, or internet service n room. Raddisson hotels have this as policy in a hotels, & many Far East hotels also. I find too that the overseas branch of providers do make it awkward to sign on & roam internationally. TMobile have so many packages & some are invalid in another Country ,eg France to Hungary.

Maybe we shold be writing on our comment cards at htels, the lack of availability of wi fi, & choosing those hotels that offer it as a service.

[RebeccaBallatine]

In Sweden wifi is free in most of the top hotels and most of the cafes too. As you say Radisson SAS was the first hotel group to introduce it and Sweden seems to have accepted that this is a good thing for business, encouraging people to stay connected. It leaves a good impression. I for one found it hassle free – no wonder everything runs like clockwork over there.

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