Thursday, January 18, 2007

Hotel Internet connections still need some work

According to this New York Times article, hotel Internet connections still need some work. I have to admit that I’m on board with this one: Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes, well, not-so-great to terrible. Here’s one guy’s take, from the article:

    Will Allen III, an organizational development consultant who travels most weeks, attributes growing connectivity problems to the shift to wireless access, estimating that he has trouble with Wi-Fi service in hotels about 50 percent of the time, in contrast to 5 percent of the time with a wired connection.

    “Wireless is just not reliable yet, and hotels are just catching up to the fact that they’ve got to be on top of this,” he said, noting that he has turned down free upgrades to a room with Wi-Fi in favor of a wired connection in a lesser room. And if he is planning a long-term stay, he and his colleagues will test a hotel’s Internet service in advance.

    “We can’t stay at a hotel unless the Internet works,” he said. “It’s like oxygen — we have to have it.”

Sounds like it would be a good idea these days to add testing connectivity in various guest rooms to your site selection checklist.

3 Responses to “Hotel Internet connections still need some work”

  1. Inga Says:

    Checking internet connection is a great idea. Also, I would suggest to meet hotel’s IT manager during your site visit and get an idea of how the hotel’s internet works in general. Testing one connection in one guest room is good, but there is no way to tell what happens when your 100 attendees will try to connect from their guest rooms all at the same time, usually after the meeting ends. In some cases the hotel’s router is not able to handle the volume. Even worse, if the hotel’s router has to service hotel’s employees’ offices as well, your group can jam the whole system just by trying to get online. Getting an idea of the internet service as whole at particular hotel is probably a future “must” item on the site inspection checklist.

  2. Sue Pelletier Says:

    Good points, Inga! I’ve experienced entire systems going down and, while I can’t say it was definitely due to meeting-related overload, I’m guessing that’s what happened.

  3. Rob Says:

    This is precisely why webcasts originating from an event’s hotel ballroom always give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. Most people don’t realize that the internet connection granted to a ballroom may be the same internet connection shared with all those hotel rooms. So, in addition to worrying about whether there is adequate connections in the rooms, be sure to consider whether your event connection is adequate (and separate). For a ballroom webcast, I always ask for two connections in the ballroom, both separate from the hotel rooms, and (if possible) handled by different internet providers.




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