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What is it with Hotels and shitty, restricted wifi in the west? I can't say I've stayed in a lot of hotels, but of the ones I have stayed in, it's only ever be
by suvelx 8y ago
What is it with Hotels and shitty, restricted wifi in the west?
I can't say I've stayed in a lot of hotels, but of the ones I have stayed in, it's only ever been an issue in the West.
Perhaps that's a part of the reason I enjoy holidays in East Asia. I get the feeling wifi there is a just a thing, you get access to it, it works. And nearly all the hotels I've stayed in also offer a free phone that you can take with you if you need data outside of the hotel.
Yet, in the west, you're lucky if you get some paltry free allowance. For a business who's aim is "make your stay enjoyable" they're doing a pretty shit job of it.
- mosselman 8y agoWiFi in China, in general, was incredibly shitty and I have been in hotels in 'the west' where I'd get 50 mbit, but I have also had crappy wifi experiences. So I think you get shitty internet in both east and west, as is to be expected when 50 or more devices try to stream Netflix at the same time on the same internet connection. Luckily, in the EU at least, you can roam with your own 4G connection everywhere and having a 120 KB/s connection is a thing of the past.
- Spacemolte 8y agoExactly. Of the 6 or so different resort hotels i have visited in the canary islands etc, maybe one had good wifi/internet. But since the EU rules changed, i just connected via 4G - problem solved.
- disiplus 8y agoin eu you can roam free but unlimited is limited, i had a unlimited connection in my country but in roaming its 10gb
- mosselman 8y agoIt still beats paying €5/MB like in the olden days.
- celticninja 8y agoThe more expensive the hotel the greater the chance they charge for WiFi access.
- andimm 8y agoMy experience is, the more business traveler oriented the hotel, the more likely you'll be charged for WiFi. My theory is, often companies have a limit for room prices for their employees, but WiFi fees count additional other expenses so they won't matter for the selection of the hotel. So as a business traveler you don't care to be charged 20$/day for WiFi, your employer will pay for it. Hotels make nice extra money. Only "normal" guests who care, will be annoyed. In medium tier Hotels and especially Hostels all around the world I never experienced any WiFi restrictions.
- ghaff 8y agoI travel a lot and I don't remember the last time I paid for WiFi anywhere aside from the occasional mandatory "resort fee" that covered a number of things including WiFi. It's true that a number of chains waive WiFi only if you are a member of a rewards program and book through their site but I always do so.
- morganvachon 8y ago> My experience is, the more business traveler oriented the hotel, the more likely you'll be charged for WiFi. I've had the opposite experience. My wife and I usually stay at Hampton Inn or Hilton properties on vacation, two star "business traveler oriented" locations with free breakfast and free low-speed WiFi. It's fast enough for everything except streaming video in HD, and we always bring a Raspberry Pi with a thumb drive full of TV shows and/or movies we want to see while on vacation. Most of the places we've stayed even had free HBO/Showtime for when we want to watch something random. Conversely, for our fifth anniversary we stayed at a luxury suite for the weekend, and we had to pay for any WiFi whatsoever, and for breakfast (admittedly a much nicer breakfast experience than other hotels).
- flavor8 8y agoYou are saying the same thing. It boils down to: Mid-price hotels often have free wifi. Expensive hotels charge much more often. Cheap hotels are a tossup.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
- raverbashing 8y agoMore an issue in the US than "the West" in general
- thestorm_jpeg 8y agoDon't kid yourself. I know places in Europe where they charge you extra for the AC remote control. I wish I was joking.
- raverbashing 8y agoWell, bad hotels exist everywhere, but this specific wifi issue is more American from my experience
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tokyodude 8y agoit's no better for me Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, ... slow, bad signals, stupid captive portals serving no purpose.
- mjlee 8y agoMy theory is that these hotels were the very first to get wifi, when it was a premium feature. Because it works or perhaps because of contractual obligations with their service provider, they're reluctant to change their model now. The hotels in East Asia got wifi later, where it was easier to set up and therefore more likely to be offered for free.
- NullPrefix 8y ago>wifi ... was a premium feature Which millennium are we talking about?
- mcv 8y agoWifi isn't all that much older than our current millennium, Mister Time Traveller from the distant future.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoI think you mean decade or something? 'Cause even in the states I remember when we finally setup Wi-Fi in the mid to late 2000's and that was still not too long ago... I guess it didn't feel like a premium feature to people who bought it for their home, but for a hotel who has to rely on their ISP to setup everything for them, it definitely is a premium service. I wouldn't be surprised if the contracts hotels have are pay per use, so they barely pay much to have the services. Why change that model and give everyone free Wi-Fi. It's the cheaper motels that usually offer free Wi-Fi.
- NullPrefix 8y ago>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi >Introduced September 1998; 20 years ago
- systemtest 8y agoI remember going to Los Angeles in 2006 and having to wardrive and set up camp behind a Chinese restaurant to get free WiFi.
- marcus_holmes 8y ago
- farazzz 8y agoAll the hotels I’ve stayed in Asia have had paid WiFi
- martin-adams 8y agoI once stayed in a hotel 11 years ago with an ethernet cable which was awesome. My guess would be the time they installed it. Those that were early had to pay more for the hardware and agreements and saw it as an optional extra charged at a premium. Now that it's a commodity, the cost of hardware has reduced and simply giving a wifi password is simple for new installations. But those who did it earlier may not justify replacing it for something that's free, because what they have 'works' for them. I'm probably wrong, but wouldn't be surprised.
- grandmczeb 8y agoI’m staying at a hotel in Hong Kong right now with horrible, shitty WiFi. So not just a “west” problem it seems...