Another suggestion is a mobile dongle – I use Three in the UK and I pay £20/month for 15GB, but there are cheap as chips pay-as-you-go deals on offer. £20 for the dongle itself, then a few quid a pop while travelling. As with using your mobile with JoikuSpot, it’s down to the reception you get inside the hotel!

Regardless, I totally agree with you that it’s just ridiculous how much hotels charge especially considering how poor quality the connection often is.

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Funny you should mention this: we have just blogged about the amazingly complicated process of buying a Vodem in Australia to avoid the rip-off fees of hotel internet access.

We already have a New Zealand Vodem to avoid the upto $39 a day internet fees in hotels, and found the process simple and cost effective. In Australia, while it is cos effective – it sure isn’t simple – with a mass of “anti-terrorism” FUD making the process ridiculously complicated.

But still – I recommend it rather than being a mug for the hotels.

BTW – it seems that Intercontinental Hotel Group are slapping on a 1.5% “surcharge” if you pay you bills by Credit Card. We have refused and got the charge reversed, but I wonder who much extra they are pulling if from people who aren’t noticing.

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Darren

I commented on this before. I Got stuck in January and the Queens Moat House at Gatwick had free wifi and speaking to people seemed to be a good service. But to use the fix computers would cost £15 even for 5 minutes.

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Look if you can’t afford it maybe you should just do without it for a few hours, ten years ago no one would of thought twice about it.

Now everyone thinks they must be on line all of the time,so don’t sweat it , take a walk or go get some exercise,the net will still be there when you get back.Trust me.

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I totally agree with you, the cost of internet access in some hotels is obscene. I can’t see how in the long run it does them any favours to be greedy and charge high prices.

When I am away it is one thing I always try and check now and hotels that offer free wifi, certainly get a thumbs up in my book!

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I’m with you on this one – I wouldn’t book a hotel myself without free Wifi these days so for me it’s a deal breaker – no free wifi, no booking. However, I’m primarily travelling for leisure with advance warning to research these things.

I stayed in the Macdonald Manchester recently & was pleasantly surprised to find that although they had a charge for wifi, the reception could lend me a cable to plug into the internet in my foom, so I could use my lap top. It seems to be the big chains that are relying on business bookings that still charge – all the small & medium size places I’ve stayed in seem to have free wifi as standard. In fact it seems the cheaper the room, the more likelihood of free wifi.

To extend the argument, I think it’s outrageous that you can go to Heathrow airport and not be able to get any free wifi, only connect to chargeable. It should be provided as a service to customers.

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When travelling in the UK I use an 02 internet dongle which costs £2 a day, £7.50 a week or £15 for 30 days. I get a good signal in most urban areas. However when outside the UK I depend on free hotel wifi as roaming charges are so high for mobile internet.

Darren, I have mobile internet on my Vodafone mobile but the limit is 25mb a day or 500 mb a month, so if I used Joikuspot to provide wifi for use on my netbook wouldn’t I go over this limit?

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Go to your local coffee shop, Mcdonald’s, Starbucks for free wifi.
I think Wifi access is better in North America than Europe. Go to Seattle where almost everywhere has free wifi access even the airport. Thanks Bill Gates!

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For the lareg chain hotels, I think it is business travellers who are the “enemy” here. I think they contentedly (ie without protest) pay for the wifi internet, knowing that they will simply expense it back to their company. This makes acceptance of a fee that should today be free (I see it in the same list of essentials as a bed, shower, TV). It will eventually go away but I still see it hanging around for a few years yet as the hotel cream profit for this service that costs them very little to provide.

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Internet cafes are just as bad. Paid my 4 euros for 4 hours (min time) and another 5 euros for 2 coffees in La Cala. Most of the hotels were 5 euros for an hour. There must be a business opportunity here

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BTOpenzone is quite good value if you’re going to be in UK for more than a few days, I think it’s about £25 for a week and £40 for a month.

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I am fundamentally against it as a consumer, but as a hotelier I can share why it happens. The hotels that tend to charge for them are the larger chain hotels that have people on expense accounts. Expense accounts type do book rooms with price in mind. Yet, they seldom are so concerned about their corporate money that they care about these additional charges. They aren’t just getting hit by internet charges. They pay ridiculous fees for service, parking, breakfast, and business services. It can easily add an additional 50% to the hotel bill. While 50% hits consumers strongly, the business traveler doesn’t worry about it.

I own a hotel in Chicago and we don’t charge for internet services, breakfast, parking, etc. Our Midway Airport hotel is a one-price place, as much of our business is non-corporate. There are some more upscale properties in the city charging the same rates as us, which makes us look overpriced on first glance to the dollar-conscious shopper. Nonetheless, our guests appreciate the no additional fee policy that we have.

Some in the industry blame the whole online booking thing as the source of this charges. When Expedia takes 20% of your room rate, and when customers are shopping by price, then the market pushes hoteliers into low-balling in the beginning and making it up later in value-added services. This is why on-demand paid movies are also becoming more prevalent.

The marketplace is tight. Profits are dropped tremendously. Many hotels are struggling to keep their doors open with escalated costs and decreased revenues. We watch the online booking engines record record profits, and are having a hard time keeping afloat.

Something has to give. And, in this case, it is the guest needing to pay to play. The margins no longer allow us to give away so much for free. Except in our type of hotel, with all of our value conscious guests, who would have a negative emotional imprint if we were to start playing those games. So, we’ve held our rates, while the upscale have dropped them, although the end effect is more or less the same. They just look better in the shopping process and we look better in the TripAdvisor reviews (which reflect customers expectations being met more than some fixed standard of service).

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It seems like a lot of people don’t understand the cost of running Internet in a hotel, especially larger ones which typically charge for it. Here’s the comparison…

I installed wireless at a small 50 room hotel. Their costs are $100 USD/month for a business-grade cable internet connection and a few $50 wireless routers. They give the internet access away for free to guests.

I also installed a wireless system at a 500 room hotel, and the cost was nearly $150,000 USD for the equipment and installation. The cost of their internet connection is $5,000/month to service all the rooms and meeting space with an acceptable connection speed and guaranteed service level from their ISP. Then the cost to run the toll-free help desk is $500/month ($1/month per room). Maintenance and warranty fees for the equipment is yet another cost. When new WIFI standards come out, this equipment will need to be replaced all over again. All these costs need to be paid for. Hotels are for-profit businesses, answerable to shareholders. Shareholders don’t invest in businesses that don’t make a profit.

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Why do you people need to be attached to email and the internet 24 hours a day?
Nothing is that important that it cannot wait.
You are not that important that you need to be accessible all the time.
I assume you all have Facebook and Twitter accounts as well and you’re even probably on Friends Reunited.
This whole thread is very sad. Get some friends you can talk to, or build up acquaintances in your local or through social activities. For work speak to people or use a phone when required.

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The high cost of Internet access is a problem almost all over the world, a general complaint if you want. However, I think that’s strange. When I travel I search for hotels that have Internet Wi-Fi included in the room’s price (and of course I don’t want the room at a higher price). I was lucky enough to find such hotels. But I guess Wi-Fi remains a problem – just as parking fees if one comes by car (or rents one).

Probably the cost of the Internet access depends also on the local infrastructure. In countries with good Internet access and high connection quality it’s almost a natural thing to include Internet in the final price – not to charge it, but to include the service as a bonus.

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couldnt agree more. We come up with this alot a lot of venues charge for internet access in meeting rooms.

There is one thing charging for internet access in hotel lobbies but it should be free in meeting rooms and bedrooms because hotels receive revenue for these. In lobbies I would offer a certain period free, it can be frustrating for hoteliers to see someone take up space surfing and not even buying a coffee.

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The cost of providing internet to a hotel room is astronomical, then add the cost of providing technical support to the user who hardly knows how to turn on their laptop let alone whether or not their IT department refuses to let them use DHCP.
Face the facts people, while internet may be low cost at home (here in NZ it is not) providing a large number of users a stable fast and SECURE connection is not.
If you don’t want to pay the hotel’s charges for telephone calls, you use your mobile. If you don’t want to pay for internet, bring your own, and then don’t ask the hotel staff how to use it.

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