I Can See Why Andy Doesn’t VoIP on the Road
Or at least he doesn’t VoIP when on the road and he needs to do a KenRadio show.
I am staying at the Club Quarters in downtown Chicago. The hotel, like most these days, provides free Internet, in the form of WiFi and a wired Ethernet connection. What I have found is that the Internet connection is downright slow. I feel like I’m getting about 256kb/s, which is nowhere near what I get at home. This is with both Ethernet and WiFi, and it’s a shame, really. Is there a lot of guests using it? Maybe. But it’s downright slow. Given that we’re in downtown Chicago with presumably plenty of bandwidth nearby, this is just silly.
The scary thing is that in my trips to the San Francisco Bay Area, I have experienced much the same thing. Enemic bandwidth at hotels. My guess is that Andy experiences the same problem and, instead of trying to Skype with Ken, just records a segment.
The major thing I’m doing right now with my “broadband” is downloading podcasts. Tomorrow’s journey home will be long. Between the train ride to the airport, the plane ride to Seattle, and the drive home, I’m sure I will be travelling a good 6 or 7 hours tomorrow. Longer if there are travel delays, which I have no doubt will occur. Because the connection is slow, I utilized the broadband connection during the day to download a good portion of the items. While at dinner, I downloaded most of the rest of them. I should have enough podcasts to listen to in order to cover that time. If I’m stuck at the airport, I can always download more from my phone because there will be more stuff tomorrow.
