Wi-Fi in hotels

Streaming a movie uses around $0.05 to $0.08 of bandwidth. Heating the water for a typical shower costs around 7-10 times more. Upmarket hotel customers should be more upset about internet surcharges than if their room had a coin-op shower. Furthermore, I've never seen an internet surcharge less than $5. At an equivalent markup for the data I actually used during one recent hotel stay, that coin-op shower would have cost $100.

I think that is crazy and that people won't use their iPads anymore if they have to start paying to use them in hotels. One of the perks of staying in a hotel is because Wi-Fi is available AND free. Once this happens, if it happens, I also feel as if hotels will start to lose business if they charge customers to pay for wi-fi.

Surely hotels can simply get faster connections (fiber, etc.), to get around this. Higher speed connections are getting cheaper all the time...

The issue is more that the hotels didn't properly size their own internet usage as people get used to broadband at home (rather than dial up), they expect a similar connection in a hotel room.

Do we pay for lighting, or hot water, or for basic cable on the TV (which has far more cost/setup than internet access, but a hotel with no TVs probably wouldn't work for most people)?

It has reached the point where high-speed internet access is a basic utility and should simply be included in the cost of the room.

For some reasons I'm reminded of 70s hotels, with TVs with coin slots. Anyone suggesting that internet be metered is living in the past, or has an essentially anti-technology slant on this. Nobody talks about metering the air-conditioning, or hot water, or for how long the lights are on. If the average household can afford the internet, then all but budget hotels should be able to crowbar it into the price somehow.

1) The hotels charge for phone calls (though some allow free local calls), almost everyone agrees this is reasonable.
2) Why not allow a reasonable amount of internet - say 500MB per day- at no charge then anything above that is pay for use.

The world is becoming more and more dependent on technology. The hotels could easily charge for internet and people would still pay it because they feel that they cannot last more than a minute without the internet.

Is this new? I distinctly recall, two years ago now, arguing with hotel staff (in Rotorua, New Zealand, in case you care) over whether I'd downloaded more than 20Mb and should therefore be charged for another tranche of usage.

Some hotels already offer tiered connection plans--and the staff at such hotels have often told me, as a guest, that in fact there was no difference between the plans, probably most often because the system was not actually able to keep up with a rate faster than the cheapest option.

I think you meant to write "the runaway success of the iPad." Not sure if you've noticed, but other tablets have not been faring so well.

this is bad news for travellers. But cost of rooms can be adjusted appropriately to take care of the heavy users, good hotels need not compromise quality.

Funny: in the less-expensive hotels, not only is the WiFi free, but it's usually faster and has better coverage (no need to pull a chair near the hall door trying to get a signal).

Perhaps it's more a matter of the world's Marriotts and Hiltons and Sheratons trying to amortize their networking hardware far beyond the point that it becomes obsolete, while milking the mandatory fees as a cash cow.

I read the New York Times piece that Gulliver refers to in this posting as a repackaging of iBAHN's company line. While iBAHN can promote its company and services in any way it finds effective, the Times article failed to put those assertions in context or present any differing viewpoints. And I expect more from Gulliver and The Economist than to regurgitate partial truths without either adding value or pointing to the shortcomings in the original assertions.

Then I want a discount if I don't turn on the TV.