Hotels and Internet

[tanker27]

So currently I am on a Business trip and I am Currently staying at a Embassy suites (because its a Hilton Chain and I have rewards) long story shot the internet/wifi sucks. According to speedtests I only get 1 to 1.5mb down and barely 64k up. My damn iPhone is faster than that >.<

So this leads me to my questions, Is there any sites out on teh intarnets that rate hotels and their 'net offerings? (i couldnt find anything on the 'g')

[dextrous]

In my experience, they are all really terrible. Last time, I just tethered my phone to my laptop and skipped the hotel wifi all together.

[superjawes]

Yeah, don't expect much. I imagine that the guest internet is relatively slow for the relative volume and shared by everyone. If you can use your phone and/or tether it to your laptop, it probably would be much faster...just be careful if you have a limited data plan.

EDIT: as an alternative, you can try to find a Panera, Starbucks, or McDonald's. I don't know how common WiFi in McD's is, but the other two usually have free WiFi, and if nothing else, you won't be sharing with as many people.

[derFunkenstein]

The last couple hotels that I've stayed at which advertised free wifi all happened to actually be down. I don't know if that's common or not, but it was really weird that they were all down at the time I was there.

And as a business traveler going back to the dawn of in-hotel wifi (I've been traveling for work since 2002), I can affirm what dextrous said and what you found - speeds are awful. If you want to do anything more than slowly surf the web, it's not useful.

[tanker27]

Dang, Thats not what I wanted to hear....LOL.

I remember staying in a Hlton (proper) in Anaheim and the hotel wifi was good: a steady 5-7Mb on peak times and close to 15 on off peak hours. Mind you this hotel was right next door to the large ass convention center where Blizzard and Microsoft hold their conventions at yearly.

[trackerben]

On my travels (I now reside in southeast asia) I always bring my iphone 3GS for tethering, I usually load it up with a local prepaid SIM dataplan upon arrival. It's best to not rely on hotel wireless except perhaps in executive lounges at odd hours. If you're on a club floor near such a nice lounge, you could go Mission: Impossible style, bring a small travel router and mount it down the hall from the lounge, using wireless AP mode to feed signal through your door.

Superjawes' advice on free wifi alternatives is good. Many standalone McDonalds in California have 20Mbps connections good all the way to the parking lot, just avoid peak hours. If you tote Apple gear, get a seat at the rear of the nearest Apple Store and enjoy what you paid for.

[lilbuddhaman]

The more expensive the hotel, the slower the connection.

Who stays at expensive hotels? Businessmen with their work laptops and other devices.
Who stays at cheap hotels? Deadbeats, lower-end businessmen who don't have laptops and other devices.

This is obviously becoming less and less true, but for the most part, a cheaper hotel will have the same "business class" internet being divided out to the hotel's wireless, and less people will be sucking up the bandwidth at those cheaper places. Also, a smaller hotel with less rooms can be good too, as they'll have that same connection split between less possible rooms.

The ideal thing to do is find a nice hotel that has a crappy one nearby, so you can stay in the good room and then hop over to the lobby or parking lot of the other one and do whatever you need to do.

[just brew it!]

EDIT: as an alternative, you can try to find a Panera, Starbucks, or McDonald's. I don't know how common WiFi in McD's is, but the other two usually have free WiFi, and if nothing else, you won't be sharing with as many people.

Most (if not all) McD's have free WiFi now. When I travel for work I take a cellular modem; when I travel for non-work-related things I typically hit the local McD's when I need to get online. Either one works way better than hotel WiFi.

[superjawes]

EDIT: as an alternative, you can try to find a Panera, Starbucks, or McDonald's. I don't know how common WiFi in McD's is, but the other two usually have free WiFi, and if nothing else, you won't be sharing with as many people.

Most (if not all) McD's have free WiFi now. When I travel for work I take a cellular modem; when I travel for non-work-related things I typically hit the local McD's when I need to get online. Either one works way better than hotel WiFi.

See, I know I heard that WiFi was coming, but I didn't know that it had been completely rolled out yet.

So there you go. Panera and Starbucks (and other coffee shops) will give you a nicer environment if you need to work, but McD's is there if you want a cheaper cost of entry (and they may just be more common than Starbucks). There are rules about actually buying something to use WiFi...

[Ryu Connor]

I've had some positive experiences with the Springhill Suites Marriott's in several different states over the past year.

Nice hotel without crap Internet.

My favorite hotels are those that still charge you a fee ($10) for terrible Internet access.

[jss21382]

I wouldn't suggest starbucks, their free wifi is a pain, you have to wait for their login/tos acceptance page to load, sometimes it just doesn't. Then once you're online the speed is all but worthless, at least that's been my experience at the starbucks around here. Every other coffee shop and McDonalds has free unsecured wifi that works at reasonable speeds.

[cynan]

Most hotels I've stayed at recently have had really slow internet as well.

The one notable exception was a Delta last spring. It advertised that it was undergoing some new trial involving a fiber connection. Download speeds were in the neighborhood of 50mbits, if I recall correctly. The only huge caveat was that there was NO WIFI! Each room had a desk with a 6 ft length of retractable ethernet cable. Maybe they've bought some wireless routers since?

[superjawes]

Most hotels I've stayed at recently have had really slow internet as well.

The one notable exception was a Delta last spring. It advertised that it was undergoing some new trial involving a fiber connection. Download speeds were in the neighborhood of 50mbits, if I recall correctly. The only huge caveat was that there was NO WIFI! Each room had a desk with a 6 ft length of retractable ethernet cable. Maybe they've bought some wireless routers since?

I would prefer ethernet, and it might just keep other moochers off the network to maintain speeds.

[bobboobles]

The times I've tried hotel wifi, all the APs had dropped down to "B" speeds. Useless.

[Arclight]

Somehow this feels related to the topic, though i can't really help you

[irvinenomore]

Currently in a Residence Inn (Marriott)

http://www.viaero.com/speedtest gives me:

Download Speed: 6037 kbps (754.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 5179 kbps (647.4 KB/sec transfer rate)
Latency: 60 ms

On wireless & is roughly consistent with http://www.rioplexwireless.com/speedtest, notice that the hotel doesn't seem to be as full as it has over the summer though.

Usually when I am on the road I try and use the wired connection because the wireless bandwidth is being hogged by all the i-have-too-much-disposable-income-Devices ported by Boomer clientele. Tonight the wired connection tests about the same as the wireless, maybe I'm getting throttled.

Also I would hate going to McD's for wifi here in winter because it's -20 C too cold!

[paulWTAMU]

The one time I stayed at one Ramada's speeds were good but they weren't free.

Crowne Plaza wi-fi sucks so bad it hurts; I've had it time out when I tried to download stuff to my kindle. Frigging e-books for gods sakes, you're not talking video here.

The Sheraton in NOLA was pretty bad too (but damn the hotel was right next to some good bars).

[yogibbear]

I typically get better wi-fi speeds sitting around in Emirates business class lounges (excluding Dubai... because that is wifi speed max / 10,000 users so it sucks) than I do in Hotels (Crowne Plaza is just woefully terrible).