Work phone
Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a WiFi connection when you can just select the "log in with your provider" option (e.g. Orange) and enter the work/network supplied username/password and let them sort out the bill.
I’ve never paid for it in my life... we are talking Wi-Fi, right?
Free at last! Free at last! Thank God, I’ve found some public Wi-Fi that’s free at last! When I say free, I mean I didn’t have to pay for it by giving away my email, address, date of birth or inside leg measurement, nor have to invent yet another unique password for the privilege of getting online at this location just for …
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 14:41 GMT Richard 12
Re: must be a Europe thing?
This US hotel is even worse.
It happily lets me tick the "normal free wifi" option, then connects me for a while.
At random, it stops working and demands that I log in again.
Except that Google still works so my phone doesn't realise and can't automatically log in!
It even goes so far as to let me do a search, lists all the results and only ceases and asks for the login once I follow a search result. Or try to.
It doesn't even redirect me back to the target site after logging back in.
The worst part is that it makes 'responsive' Web pages even more unusable than usual as they randomly vanish and become the login page...
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 18:28 GMT Daniel B.
Re: must be a Europe thing?
My experience has been quite different. US airports have free Wi-Fi, only showing a ToS page to click through and you're in. US hotels, however, love to charge for the privilege of having *any* kind of internet access in your room. Even Ethernet/wired. And they charge per device!
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 23:52 GMT FrankAlphaXII
Re: must be a Europe thing?
>>US airports have free Wi-Fi, only showing a ToS page to click through and you're in
Not all of them, though more do have it than do not. Obviously you've never had the "joy" of flying through Atlanta, which is surprising if you've traveled in the US. I usually have to fly through that hellhole at least twice a year and sometimes more than that if I have to go to an Advanced school or if I'm helping out units that are deploying or coming back from a deployment at Camp Shelby.
Atlanta's airport wants like 7 to 10 bucks for an exceedingly slow connection, so much so that the API that flightaware uses timed out, every single time I tried to see where the fuck my connecting flight's aircraft physically was because it was late and I wasn't gonna hang around the gate twiddling my thumbs when I could be drinking, eating or smoking and since I rarely travel in uniform . I paid them once, and I'll never pay them again.
However, you're correct that most hotels almost always charge way more than a connection is worth, and even if they don't the connection's so slow that you probably aren't going to be able to use skype, netflix, pandora or anything else that requires streaming. Basically, the 3G or LTE connection from your wireless provider is almost guaranteed to be better. However, in my case I usually wind up paying them and having Defense Travel Service reimburse me, but the catch there is that I actually have to prove that what I'm doing with the paid access is For Official Use Only, file a reimbursement form and wait the "3 to 5 weeks" (translation: 4 to 6 months) to get my money back. I wouldn't pay for it out of pocket though.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 03:10 GMT MondoMan
Re: must be a Europe thing?
There's a strange sort of stratification in the US where the lower-to-middle end hotel chains supply one or both of free WiFi and free wired ethernet, while their "betters" (the places with room service and bellboys) charge extra for connections, for parking, for in-room safes, and perhaps even for non-drop faucets!
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Monday 25th August 2014 19:58 GMT Al Jones
Re: must be a Europe thing?
If their customers are going to be expensing their stay, they'll charge extra for wi-fi. If their customers are going to be paying for it themselves, it's usually "free" like breakfast (read - it's included in the price, whether you want it or not. And the prices have gone up in recent years, as they have added more of these services).
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 11:44 GMT MEI7
The Americans do seem far more generous on this sort of thing. I remember even back in 2006 that the hotel WiFi was free and even more surprisingly the WiFi at the airport was totally free as well. A refreshing change from the myriad of paid options you get at most European airports.
Maybe the Americans just see the bigger picture in that it's better to keep people connected to the internet so they can keep doing work related things, people can keep buying things. Even if it's only a small help it's probably beneficial to their economy.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 07:56 GMT Anonymous Coward
Maybe the Americans just see the bigger picture in that it's better to keep people connected to the internet so they can keep doing work related things, people can keep buying things. Even if it's only a small help it's probably beneficial to their economy.
There is indeed a very pragmatic angle to this - given two hotels that are roughly equal, I will always choose the one that doesn't try to rip me off for WiFi and from what I've heard I'm far from the only one. I'm OK with them only having it in the lounge, but the rates for WiFi seem to have become the last resort for billing simply stupid amounts of money now most people avoid hotel phone charges by using their mobiles.
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 11:49 GMT disgruntled yank
American hotels
They can be all over the map: free WiFi in lobby and bar, charged WiFi or cabled internet in the rooms, free cabled in the rooms, etc. During our last hotel stay they gave us complimentary WiFi, and a room high enough to have an excellent view and terrible WiFi. We discovered that by avoiding the desk and sitting on a couch, we would connect almost reliably. Meanwhile restaurants and bars a block or two away had stronger signals.
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 12:16 GMT Anonymous Coward
A few years back our family went to a cousin's wedding in Brussels, the WIFI in the hotel rooms cost money, but there was a free-to-use internet pc in the main lobby that also required a user/pass to get online with, but as it was a complimentary use machine the user/pass was printed on a card next to the screen, which just happened to work with the WIFI hotspots dotted throughout the building...
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 14:44 GMT Juan Inamillion
Only a couple of years ago (I see it's free now) I stayed several times at the Holiday Inn Express in Peterborough (work reasons - definitely not for anything else!). I asked about internet access and they quoted £15 PER HOUR for 'full access'. When my jaw hit the floor the manager then said well if I only wanted to check email I could have their reduced service for £12 PER HOUR. I pointed out that I didn't even pay either of those sums PER MONTH at home but it made no difference...
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Sunday 24th August 2014 08:16 GMT rhydian
I've stayed in that hotel (pretty much next to the East of England Showground). If your lucky however you can get a room opposite the new houses/flats that have been built. Rather than pay £15 an hour, I simply took advantage of my (then supplier) BT's openzone service and connected via the routers of the houses opposite!
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Saturday 23rd August 2014 17:53 GMT thondwe
Too many hotspots
Slightly off the main topic, but it's the number of disparate hotspots - you move round a station/shopping centre/etc and your poor phone hops from provider to provider and always wants to reauthenticate via some irrating home page - solution is give us with free wifi and use 3G :(
Can't someone with power pass some laws to force a single provider of free wifi for these areas otherwise it's a waste of the airwaves.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 06:43 GMT Anonymous Coward
Free WiFi is not a right
Maybe if we actually paid some money occasionally towards the upkeep of the 'Net, we might have a right to demand that it works everywhere and anywhere, but otherwise, get over yourselves. Somebody has to pay for it somewhere, and if they decide to add a markup, it is only because so few people perceive the real value of the Internet. Those same people are often the ones who complain about the lack of IPv6, and why nobody updated their routers before the 512K problem. Maybe, just maybe, you should ask yourselves if you are part of the problem, instead of pretending you are part of the solution?
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Sunday 24th August 2014 07:10 GMT Neil Brown
Boingo subscription
When I was going through a phase of travelling every week or so last year, I finally bit the bullet and bought a Boingo subscription covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East — it was on "special offer", which might be available all the time if you hunt for it, for €9.95/month. I have had no problem streaming video over it, or running a VPN, and the times when I have needed to use their tech support phone number I was impressed — mobile providers could learn a lot from them!
It's a nuisance that this subscription does not include the US too, but I use a 3 pre-paid SIM with "Feel at Home" for that: £15 for a month for about 25GB, I think. The rules prohibit tethering although it did work when I tested it, just to check.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 07:16 GMT Tristan
Major selling point in hotels
Basically, if a hotel doesn't offer free WiFi, it's off the list of hotels I will consider when choosing where to stay. I can't be alone in this market pressure, surely?
The only exception is where there is no choice with free WiFi, then you're stuck with tethering (unlimited data and tethering, but who knows how fast the connection with be, if it even connects at all)
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Sunday 24th August 2014 08:07 GMT rhydian
One of my local pubs....
...Has wifi that asks for a name and email address (and other info but I forget what). What I did (for a laugh) was feed totally bogus information in. It seems the wifi service doesn't actually check if the email account is a live one or not...
Therefore, it seems one of the regulars in said pub is Professor Stephen Hawking...
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Wednesday 27th August 2014 12:48 GMT Just Enough
Re: One of my local pubs....
My standard procedure for any online facility that demands an email address, without any reasonable excuse for one, is to look up the "contact us" address on the website, and enter it. Bonus points if you can source the email address of some top dog in the company.
Same goes for those that demand a physical address. They get their HQ address.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 09:52 GMT rvt
You guys did never hear of Skype WIFI? I have used that since many years now, imcannot even remember how long at that always worked on airports as long as I can remember. Just start the application, and you pay through Skype, very simple.
I Hotels in the US apparently i have been lucky, or I am a cheapskate but i always had free wifi, it's not the fastest, but good enough to make a call. I do use B&B's far more often ( it's better everything compared to a hotel) but always had fre wifi, without getting asked the size of my penis.
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Sunday 24th August 2014 20:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Recently........
Hilton Malta and (Hilton's) Waldorf New York both charged me an arm and leg for their rooms, but expect serious extra payment for Wifi in the room. Which really pisses me off when I'm already paying so much. (And I'm sorry AC, but your argument about the cost of WiFi could equally be applied to the water in the taps, or the light or the aircon. Except that those *do* actually add substantially to the running costs of the hotel.)
Both these hotels provide free WiFi in the lobby/round the pool*, so making it part of the service wouldn't actually kill them. It's purely grabbing the money, in the manner of why the dog licks it's b*******s. i.e. "Because it can".
The Grand in Eastbourne has two levels of WiFi, basic free and a more expensive faster one. Which I did not use. But I guess for some people money is no object.
*In fact in Malta we got pretty good free WiFi on the room balcony too.
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Tuesday 26th August 2014 10:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Public WiFi limbo
Here's how it goes:
1. Phone (unbeknown to its owner) latches on to some previously-used WiFi service such as TheCloud or O2 WiFi
2. All e-mails/iMessages stop coming through, as despite the above, only their stupid login page will work
3. You sit around waiting for your mates/colleagues to arrive, but they never do - the iMessage or WhatsApp they sent you to say that the meeting point has changed never reaches you whilst you're in public WiFi latched-on-but-not-logged-on limbo
The resolution? Unless 3G/4G is unavailable and I desperately need to get online, I don't bother with public WiFi. Even then, when I've done, I always use the 'forget this network' option so that the above scenario doesn't play out.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
