Luxury stays and the premium Wi-Fi aside, travelers, in particular business travelers or women who w

Those days aren’t in the distant past, but internet fees at hotels are heading there quickly. Nearly two-thirds of hotels offer free Wi-Fi, whether it is free outright from the moment you check in to the moment paris and london tours you check out, free with signing up for a loyalty program, or free if you make your reservation directly with the hotel, according to HotelChatter.com’s Annual WiFi Report 2013 .
Luxury stays and the premium Wi-Fi aside, travelers, in particular business travelers or women who want to stay in touch with their family and friends while gallivanting around paris and london tours the world, ask, “What is the value of free WiFi?”
Hotels are using it as a gimmick they are touting as bait to lure guests to stay with them, as the report points out. But what is it worth if the signal is “piss poor” where you are practically hanging over a balcony, pressed up against a window in a strange yoga position with your lap top, net book, or tablet attempting to get a signal, finding out the “free” was only for a limited time, or heading to the lobby or the nearest Starbucks to connect? Worse, you can’t get any work done or catch up with the people close to you in your life in the privacy of your hotel room because emails and attached documents are being transmitted and websites are being downloaded at a pace slower than the Pony Express (forget dial-up days).
Often times a hotel has tiered Wi-Fi bandwidth packages for upgrading to get more speed. Seriously? That is completely false advertising and miss leading. What is the value of free Wi-Fi and booking a room based on the added value of free Wi-Fi and any other amenity that comes with the room that the hotel is touting to get you to stay there if it isn’t real?
But, it’s not as simple as that. Wi-Fi fees aren’t one size fits all for any particular hotel brand. Each property within a brand has its own policies and fee structure for the internet and other things.
So, if you don’t have your own personal IT Manager paris and london tours on site with you, like Girls That Roam does (thank you Super G), rather than go through the pain of disappointment with your hotel Wi-Fi connection, here are some helpful tips and notes about where to stay and not stay if you need a internet connection.
The standard free Wi-Fi bandwidth at a hotel is 1mbps per room. For those of you, like me, who are challenged in knowing what that means, it translates: What you can do with that is check your email, surf the web, update your social media and maybe stream paris and london tours some music.
The “internet is your oyster (pretty much),” if Wi-Fi connections are anything beyond 5mbps, Andrew Yorra, co-founder and vice president of Eleven paris and london tours Wireless , which helps hotels build and manage their Wi-Fi networks, told HotelChatter.com.
London won kudos for increasing its Wi-Fi-friendly atmosphere in its hotels and Las Vegas is quite possibly paris and london tours the friendliest paris and london tours Wi-Fi city in the states (it has its own guide to “Sin City’s” Wi-Fi hookup), according to this year’s HotelChatter.com report.
Unfortunately, none of the hotels we’ve stayed at outside of the U.S. made the list, so we can’t make a recommendation, but here is what HotelChatter.com had to say, “ International Wi-Fi Heros and Villans .”
Remember, hotels, even if you are in your room, are public spaces that can be hacked. Be on the lookout for fake hotel Wi-Fi networks and login sites. So, if you are sending and receiving sensitive information or logging on to check your bank account Yorra suggests using a virtual paris and london tours private network (VPN), paris and london tours to encrypt your communications and wherever you go. Purchasing online is generally safe, due to retailers using Secure Socket Layers (SSL), but added protection isn’t a bad idea.
Another alternative to either avoiding hotel Wi-Fi fees and potential hacking, is to get a Mi-Fi device (Super G and I have one for traveling) or use your smart phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot (check with your carrier about your data package to check into these options).