Hotel Broadband Complaints
I know that Andy Abramson has complained about this before, and I’m pretty sure I have too. But Broadband in hotels is very hit or miss. By that, I mean the available speed and access is adequate. Here are my complaints with the Staybridge Suites in Sunnyvale:
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It’s adequate for web surfing–barely. It is definitely not downloading large files. Now it did work okay for the SightSpeed call I had with SightSpeed President and COO Scott Lomond, in fact almost as good as it did at home, sans a few moments of pixelation due to bandwidth issues. But I had that call at 4pm in the afternoon–a time I would expect almost no one to be using the hotel broadband connection. (And yes, I will post a write-up on that conversation at some point in the near future). I obviously do the downloading at night when everyone is using the connection.
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This hotel uses a system from IP3 Networks to authenticate users. Now granted this service is free, but you get redirected to the splash page every 24 hours. And after you click through the annoying screens, it takes a good two or three minutes and several manual page refreshes in Firefox before it lets the traffic through. This is downright annoying.
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The Ethernet jack is not located in the best area. I happened to get a two beroom suite this time around, so the network jack is located in the living room area. I’d much rather have it in each of the rooms. That’s why I bring a WiFi router with me. Which reminds me, on my next trip, I will have to see how the Linksys WTR54G that is currently sitting in a box at home does compared to the D-Link DWL-G730AP I currently travel with.
Maybe I will find a different hotel to stay at next time, but I suspect they all have varying degrees of problems with their broadband. Can anyone recommend a good hotel in the Sunnyvale/Mountain View area that actually has good broadband or is located near a T-Mobile Hotspot?
Technorati Tags: broadband, hotels, sightspeed, wtr54g, ip3 networks
