HotelChatter

2011 Hotel WiFi Report :: Best :: Worst :: International :: Best and Worst Cities :: FAQ :: Infographic

Making sense of the internet connection in your room.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

1. Why do I pay for hotel WiFi at luxury hotels where I'm paying top dollar for a room and not at the budget hotels?
Sadly, four and five star hotels charge for internet because that's just what luxury hotels do. Everything is available for a price. If you can shell out $400 for a hotel room, what's $10, $12 or $15 more a day for internet?

Budget hotels on the other hand are in the business of attracting customers with their freebies like breakfast, long distance phone calls and cable TV. So internet is just the next logical amenity to offer for free.

As for the brands that aren't roadside or airport hotels but also aren't the Ritz or the Four Seasons, like Hyatt, Marriott and W Hotels, they probably just fancy themselves as a higher-end brand and thus, charge for WiFi.

2. Why can't hotels just roll the internet fee into the room rate?
Internet is the new long-distance phone call so hotels who are charging for WiFi do so as a secondary revenue stream. That said, there is a real cost to providing free WiFi for guests and it's only going up.

Joe Germanotta aka Lady Gaga's Papa and the owner and founder of GuestWiFi, said hotels are scrambling to provide more bandwidth as more and more guests start to log on with multiple devices .

"Bandwidth is the most pressing issue because demand is going through the roof," he said. In 2002, when Germanotta first started GuestWiFi, now a division of SpotOn Networks, they would see between five to 10 users online at a hotel with an average of 200 rooms. "Now, there's 70 or 80 people online and their fighting for two T1 lines," he said.

His company's solution is supplementing the hotel's T1 or T2 line with another connection, thus creating a multi-homing solution that can withstand the guest demand.

Still, don't feel too bad for hotels trying to absorb the cost of WiFi. For a 200-room hotel, Germanotta estimated that it would cost the hotel about $7,000-$10,000 to set up the network with monthly costs ranging from $300-$425 per month including secondary internet bandwidth. When you're staying at a luxury hotel paying upwards of $500 a night, there's no reason why the WiFi shouldn't be free.

And as Paul Carr--the man who once lived in hotels for three years and is currently hotel-hopping in Vegas--recently told us, he believes internet is a "basic human right." Strengthening his argument are his parents who are hoteliers. Their hotel does not charge for WiFi. "They know that the small amount of revenue they'd get from charging for WiFi is offset by the fact that it annoys guests and discourages repeat stays," Carr said.

3. How come the WiFi at Hotel Brand X in NYC costs $15 but in Los Angeles it only costs $12 and in even smaller cities it's only $10?
The cost of WiFi is left to the discretion of the hotel owner, not the brand, which is why you see varying prices for WiFi in the same hotel brand but in different cities. And as for the brands that offer it free, the hotel owner has no choice but to provide that service free, regardless of the cost to his bottom line.

4. How safe is it to use free internet in hotels?
As long as we've been writing this report, we've never been hacked while signed onto a hotel network but the threat is out there. Often times, phony networks bearing names that resemble the hotel's name will pop up in a network list. Some may even include the word "free" in their network name. Avoid these at all costs. Make sure to sign onto the hotel's network only.

But even if a hotel makes you enter your name and your room number or a security code, that doesn't mean they have a very secure network. Germanotta said most hotels are doing this to keep outsiders off their precious bandwidth and also to keep people from getting on their network for illicit purposes.

If you're paranoid about being hacked in your hotel room, consider signing up for a VPN--virtual private network--and only use https sites (as opposed to http:) for your banking and online shopping. Or else, save your Justin Bieber Fan Club accounting work for when you're safe at home.

5. What if I want to sign on with my iPad and my iPhone? Will I get charged twice?
Recently, we spent a night at the W San Francisco and aside from charging us $14.95 to surf the internet, the hotel wanted us to cough up another $14.95 to connect with our iPad. Fail.

To avoid this, Germanotta recommends registering your devices with the front desk. That is, have them authenticate your device's MAC address so that you can connect from one without being charged.

If the front desk is not this tech savvy, simply ask them to remove one of the charges. They should understand.

6. What do I do if my internet is not working?
If you're internet is on the fritz, let the hotel know immediately. For hotels that charge for internet, they should have a dedicated Technology Concierge on staff but this isn't always the case. Some hotels will call an off-site technology assistant to come to your rooms but most will make their front desk try to suss out the connection problem.

Aside from letting the hotel know about the problem, always ask for the hotel to remove the internet charges if you can't get on the web--whether the network was down for an hour or down for a day. You wouldn't pay $5 for that minibar Coke if you opened it and it was empty would you?

Furthermore, if you booked your room at a hotel because it had free WiFi, only to show up and be denied access to the web, ask the hotel to comp you in some other way as well. Maybe a discount off the room rate or a complimentary breakfast. This is particularly true for business travelers. Nothing ruins a business trip faster than a broken network.

If you're extra pissed off about the internet not working, file a complaint with the hotel's parent company. Germanotta said the hotel could get fined for not living up to the brand standard. Or you could file a complaint with us and we'll definitely make sure the parent company knows about it.

7. How can I get free internet in a hotel that charges for it?
For starters, join the hotel's loyalty program. Several hotel chains offer free internet for their members. Kimpton, JDV, Omni, Fairmont and Wyndham do it for all members, regardless of their rewards level. Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood do it for their upper tier members who stay on average 50 nights a year. Some shortcuts to the upper tier involve signing up for the hotels' credit cards programs or for the credit-card wary, participating in promotions from the loyalty program to earn extra points.

Another trick is to join hotel collections like Leading Hotels of the World, which offers its members free WiFi at hotels and resorts around the world. Other collections like Preferred Hotels and Resorts and the Kiwi Collection may throw in WiFi as a perk in booking with them.

8. How else can I avoid paying for internet at hotels?
you're a frequent traveler or if you're heading for a long trip, invest in a mobile wireless card. Although, it's not "free" it will save you from having to pay hotel WiFi over and over. Most have monthly payment plans from $40 for Virgin Mobile to $60 for the bigger wireless networks like Sprint and Verizon. But you could also do a day-by-day rental from Rovair starting at $5.95 a day. Just be aware that these sticks operate much like cellphones so if your cellphone isn't getting the best service inside a hotel room, the wireless card might not either.

For more questions about Hotel WiFi, check out our answers from last year.

Have you logged on in a hotel recently? Let us know your Best and Worst Hotel WiFi Experiences Here.

2011 Hotel WiFi Report :: Best :: Worst :: International :: Best and Worst Cities :: FAQ :: Infographic