iPads (and Other Tablets) are Killing Free Hotel Wi-Fi

[Cantisque]

I wouldn't pay for hotel WiFi when 3G does the job just fine and won't cost me anything extra, plus I won't have to worry about the security implications of connecting to a semi-public network.
Even if it's free, there's still no point if you're in a town with a halfway decent 3G signal.

 

[raedwulf]

Ipads? Let me guess, laptops have only ever been used for email?

 

[ThisIsMe]

[citation][nom]beayn[/nom]Actually dialup modems used 10 bits per byte (start and stop bit) so a 56k modem would get 5.6KB/s in theory. They usually only connected between 36k and 48k tops with 44k being most common iirc. So you're nearly doubling the average speed of a dialup modem with your math.[/citation]
That would be true, except that method of transmission (8N1 direct asynchronous serial communication) was never really used on 56K modems because by that time it was already considered old and outdated because of it's 25% overhead. It was replaced by the ITU-T V.42 LAPM procedure which uses CRC and ARQ for error control and more closely resembles the frame transmission method used in Ethernet that the old serial method you described. It didn't take long for all 56K modems to eventually move to v.90 and then to v.92. So these methods could use as little as 5% or less overhead which would affect the raw data rate very little.

Anyways, I was obviously not refferring to what data rates could be expected given every possible scenario. That would have been ridiculous. Even a modem connecting at a raw data rate of 36k could still transmit data at twice that speed if compression allows it to. So your point is meaningless. Especially since I said, "So if you take the full 56kb/s of a 56K modem that would equal 7KB/s." I never stated that this actually happens. However, I did state that "...dialup ...is usually also prone to added latency from packet loss caused by numerous external sources" so I'm not really sure where you were going with your comment.

So we're still stuck in the late 90's and modems never improved since with your math.

 

[billybobser]

Excuses in early for ripping people off for wifi.

I'm sure upwards of £15 a day is reasonable, given all those pesky iPads people have.

Jog on.

 

[SRRAE]

What most people dont reliase that business broadband costs a lot more than what you pay at home and more often that not, a hotel should have 2 broadband connections one for business and one for the customers, doubling their broadband costs.
Most of these business broadband will have data caps on them, now considering you could have 100+ customer's devices connected it wont take long before the 20gb (or what ever) cap is reached and the hotel incurrs extra costs.

 

[rhangman]

Thought the Kinect was the fastest-selling consumer device in history? At least according to Guinness World Records.

 

[ArgleBargle]

Free wi-fi? Pfft. I stayed in Toronto last month at the Intercontinental in a $200 a night room and they were charging $10 for wi-fi. At that price I'll use my cell phone as a hotspot for my iPad. I don't stay at hotels much, but this "free" wi-fi doesn't seem to be nearly as prevalent as some people would like to make us think it is.

 

[twstd1]

WHOA, whoa, whoa Just how many Steve Jobs memorial videos are there on the net? I know iFans are dedicated but this is just ridiculous.

 

[Guest]

I think everyone missed the actual point. The statement was put out by a guy from iBAHN who are the ones who provide the on-demand movies in the hotel rooms. I am assuming that their business is suffering because tablet users are watching Netflix instead of paying for on-demand movies in the hotel room and they are lobbying or pressuring the hotel chains to put a premium price on internet access. It really has nothing to do with hotel network specs. Its all about the entertainment services in the hotel room.

 

[dark_lord69]

I think hotel owners should have wifi free with the room but lock it down.
Here is what I would do...
If you are staying for the night and paying for a room you are allowed to have free wi-fi on up to 2 devices.
I would require the user to give me the MAC address of the devices they want to use. That way I would know for sure not more than 2 per room were connecting. Also, It would be free but I might implement a speed limit if a user is using an excessive amount of data. Nothing crippling but just enough to keep everyone else from being held back by this data hog.

 

[joebob2000]

All they have to do is add netflix, itunes, and amazon video CDNs to their firewall so that people can't lounge around drawing 6mbit HD movies to their tablets; it's video that killed the free wifi star. The biggest "threat" to the Hotel free wifi business model is that their PPV revenue is basically 0 for anyone using this free service, and those are pure profit services for hoteliers. They are spending all this money on free wifi and destroying their other income at the same time, and that won't go on for too long.

 

[loomis86]

My experience with hotels is that if you use their wifi, you get malware up the wazoo.

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]gorehound[/nom]IPADS & the Internet in General has killed more than just Free Wifi.Lots of Retail Stores have died or are dying and right in your town.How many empty Storefronts do you see ?[/citation]

That's life !
Manufacturers of sewing machine killed the knitting needle industry.
PCs and Word Processors ruined the typewriter business.
The telephone is largely responsible for the demise of smoke signaling systems.
Jet Engine makers killer the radial engine makers.

and the list goes on.

The problem is not that new technologies kill old ones, but that some
businesses are slow to adapt.

 

[msgun98]

The problem isn't the devices or the people using them. The problem are these ISPs that charge a ridiculous amount of money for decent bandwidth without caps. Get us all on Gigabit speeds and you will see free wi-fi running with no problems. Direct the blame where it should land: the ISPs. They are the reason cloud computing is grinding to a halt (what, you want more than 1.5mbps upload and no data caps for your cloud computing? You gotta pay for a "business" internet line) and why free wi-fi looks to be getting beaten down by the consumers who use it.

 

[cadder]

[citation][nom]cpatel1987[/nom]What kind of Hotels are we talking about here? Because as someone whos in a family of hotel owners, I've NEVER heard about such complaints. I guess what I'm trying to say is the one "opinion", aka Garrison's, in this article is not really a concern for hotel owners. In comparison, paying extra for the next tier is a minor expense.[/citation]

I've traveled all around the country and I always take my laptop with me. I've stayed in large hotels, small hotels, chain hotels, locally owned small hotels, etc. I find that wifi can vary a large amount from one hotel to the next. I've been at hotels where there was good speed and reliable connection, but at other hotels you get slow speed, weak signals, and intermittent connections. And usually if you call the front desk to ask or complain about it, they say nobody else has complained and their service is perfect. So I learned that complaining was not worth my time. Kudos to you if your family provides the proper service. Go to any site that books travel and they will advertise "free high speed internet". If they are going to advertise it as high speed then it should be high speed. I WILL NOT book a room at any hotel that I don't think will provide free internet, if I have any choice at all in the matter. My opinion is that many hotels buy cheap internet service and/or cheap equipment, and it barely works. I've been at enough hotels where the service was very good to know that it is easily possible for a hotel to provide good service.

When I travel I frequently need to check with my office and that requires a lot of bandwidth. I do more than just check text emails, I have to look at PDF's and such. Other times I'm just doing normal internet browsing. I have netflix but I have not really used it while traveling.

I have occasionally used wifi on my iphone when traveling but not for very much. I use my ipad on my home network and I find that it has the potential to suck data down pretty fast. I'm sure it doesn't have much cpu power compared to my overclocked quad core desktop, but it seems to be faster in bringing up websites than my desktop is. There might be a lot of people doing netflix on ipads too. However I would expect that the average group of people in a hotel would still have more laptops than ipads.

 

[erinc]

Oh shame shame, they'll have to upgrade their internet pipes and/or implement a proxy server to cache the most accessed content. Big deal, they're making enough money off customers already, they can afford it. Not to mention that if they don't have decent internet then customer's will simply go elsewhere.

 

[viciouz2000]

where in America is internet cheap?? I live in the Los Angeles / Orange County area and currently manage a hotel with 148 rooms, there is no cable internet available in my area unless im willing to pay 10,000 in construction cost for them to run the cable thru. recently been using T3 line which is only 1.5mbs up / 0.25mbs down, which costs about $400-$500 per month. It would be cheaper to get a dsl line. dsl and home cable internet is reasonably priced but your not gonna get more than 1-2 mb up / .25 mb down. I just switched over to fiber for the property, thats 10mb down/1mb up, costs about $1200 - 1500 thru at&t per month, this is commercial, unavailable for consumers & non-business. Only other countries besides US have cheaper and faster internet. Now even the US internet suppliers are already planning to put a max cap for usage like what they currently do for smartphones carriers. Time warner cable also starting testing their usage caps for a monthly period, so soon with free wi-fi everywhere, there will be a cap to how much data can be used. So where are you people or home user / consumer can get like upwards of 10mb up/ 10mbs down for so cheap??? tell me where you living, is it a rural area? Because every major city in US can not provide that amount of bandwith. Time Warner cable extreme speed 10 up / 10 down is about $1000 a month in the LA / Southern California Area.

 

[viciouz2000]

also, thats just the cost for the internet service, i didnt even include the necessary hardware such as routers/spliiters/access points and software to control / limit the speed to each and everyroom. Most hotel contract out a company to supply the guest interent and they handle all the customer support when guests are unable to connect, so there is that extra monthly cost. With free internet pretty much a standard amenity for most hotels, the cost goes up for very little return and more problems as everyone uses it and traffic starts to slow. In this time and age where streaming is common, netflix and youtube, everyone who uses the internet is a bandwidth hog, even only a couple of people watching streaming on netflix will bring the whole internet to a crawl.

 

[zenmaster]

The issue of new Devices Hogging Bandwidth is a Red Herring.

It would not be cost prohibitive for a Hotel to sufficiently improvie it's ability to handle
the demand of these devices.

The Issue is that if the Hotel were to provide fast service for all of these devices, it would cut into the sale of Hotel Movies, Including Porn-Lite, since similar content is available over the web at a lower cost to the consumer.

Hence, It's not the COST of providing the services, but the lost SALES that quality internet would provide. Therefore, by providing Tiered Services so that BASIC service will allow for decent Web-Browsing but not quality Video Streaming and thus require the Customer to pay for Internet to Stream or buy the Hotel Pay-Per View movies.

Personally, I just use the HotSpot Feature on my Phone to give me faster internet than

 

[zenmaster]

[citation][nom]viciouz2000[/nom]also, thats just the cost for the internet service, i didnt even include the necessary hardware such as routers/spliiters/access points and software to control / limit the speed to each and everyroom. Most hotel contract out a company to supply the guest interent and they handle all the customer support when guests are unable to connect, so there is that extra monthly cost. With free internet pretty much a standard amenity for most hotels, the cost goes up for very little return and more problems as everyone uses it and traffic starts to slow. In this time and age where streaming is common, netflix and youtube, everyone who uses the internet is a bandwidth hog, even only a couple of people watching streaming on netflix will bring the whole internet to a crawl.[/citation]

Try Here..........
http/www.tierzero.com/what-is-t1/what-is-business-ethernet/

"Business Ethernet" for your general area is 15mbs Up/Down for $999 a month.

You may also be able to setup a Point to Point Network on via a Tower on your Roof with another local miles away, if the ISPs have just not gotten close enough to your building to provide the services at a reasonable cost. I know many businesses that are outside normal high speed service that obtain very fast service this way. At what you are being gouged, it is definitely an option to investigate.