TV in a hotel room? Who cares!
Jeff Pulver recently commented that, at least in a hotel room, Internet access is more important than the TV. I think that goes for the home as well, at least for me personally. If there wasn’t a TV in my hotel room, I probably wouldn’t care. My son might care if he were travelling with me, but that’s different.
On my recent trip to the San Francisco Bay Area, I turned on the TV twice. It was late at night (after about 12:30am) right before I was going to bed. I could have easily done without the TV. Many evenings on that trip, I also did without Internet, not because it was down but because I got back so late I felt that sleep was more important. At least one night, the service was actually down. The LodgeNet server that serves as a gatekeeper to the Internet at this hotel I was staying at decided that it wasn’t going to let anyone use the Internet. Since it was late, I viewed it as a sign I should get some sleep.
“Free” Internet access is becoming rather common these days, at least at the hotels around Seattle and in the San Francisco Bay Area. Even though the hotel I was at was using LodgeNet, which charges you $9.95 a day (plus tax) to use the Internet, the hotel credited me those charges immediately so it didn’t actually cost anything.
