Staying Connected Always Comes with a Price – Are You Willing to Pay for IT?

10 thoughts on “Staying Connected Always Comes with a Price – Are You Willing to Pay for IT?”

  1. I’ve found a lot depends on the room you have. I went to one seaside hotel a couple of years ago and moved rooms twice in order to get connected.

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    Here’s an (alien for you) thought: would life be easier for you if you hadn’t rejected email as a means of contact?

    When I’m travelling, all I have in my pocket is a (not very) smart phone. Web access is very tedious but, because I have email or text tip-offs for important stuff, I can pretty much function without a full-blown connection.

    Life was slightly better before when I used a BlackBerry which hooked straight to the corporate server, had a usable keyboard and a larger screen. But I’m back to full time freelancing now so no BlackBerry.

    1. Hi David, thanks for dropping by and for the kind comments; yes, I guess you are right; it may well depend on the room you are, but I just find it a bit too unfortunate that *every* room from every hotel I go to the same issues keep popping up. Far too much of a coincidence, in my opinion, to just think it’s all down to the room where I am; let’s see how things would go in the next couple of days when I’m in London …

      That’s an interesting comment with regards to making use of email while you are on the road. In a way, I thought about it, too, but then again, I am not going to fall into that trap again, and have to fight it. Here is why …

      As an example, the 4 days I was disconnected from the VPN network I had a total # of 13 emails received, which I was capable of processing in a matter of minutes when connected; the rest of the interactions happened outs there, on the various social networking spaces where I usually hang out, and if they don’t come to me for further action, I take for granted they have all been handled and dealt with; so there’s no deadlock; just a nice lovely flow that allows me to fit in right away with the tasks at hand without having to spend too much time on email.

      That’s the main reason why I’m not going back; that’s why I don’t want to become that bottleneck ever again; that’s why I keep living “A World Without Email” and having a blast at it. And needless to say, with a lot less hassle! 🙂

    2. On the other hand, David, you raise a very good point and that’s the one about how much of a demand I have got for an Internet connection; in the usual getting started with the day I fired up about 8 or 9 applications that require an Internet connection to go and grab content, and I can imagine how for some Internet Connections that may be a challenge, specially if your download speeds are 1.69MB, like I have shown above, but then again, isn’t it time for hotels to upgrade to more modern connections and stop making us use email like connectivity speeds? Shouldn’t we be moving along with the times and provide such kind of service? After all, I am paying 20€ for a 24 hour connection, which would certainly cover all of those bandwidth costs in like no time!

      So perhaps it is a good time for us to keep putting some pressure for those services to move along with the times and join the 21st century. That’s why I’m having enough of it all and creating that black list of hotels I won’t visit again till they upgrade and provide good quality Internet service. After all, we are paying big money, wouldn’t you agree?

  2. You’re right about pressuring hotels that charge to deliver value for money.

    Can’t help wondering what will happen to us when (if) the electricity goes off for any length of time.

    In the 70’s (sorry) we had rolling power cuts in the UK. I can’t imagine the consequences today.

    Just a little thought for you.

    1. Hi David! Actually, we are seeing that over here in Spain, where with the recent severe weather (With heavy snow storms) parts of Girona, north-east of Spain, have been without any electricity for over a week and managing to survive in conditions you would think would probably be not very optimal.

      I agree with you about how much we are getting used to commodities like electricity or a reliable Internet connection, but after all, isn’t that the premise of a “Smarter Planet”; one where we help to make a difference bringing resources up to an optimum state to help smarter appliances all around? Smart Grid comes to mind at the moment…

  3. Wireless access in concrete-built hotels is always dicey.

    I’ve gone over to a 3G wireless USB Service and use an antenna i can put up near a window.

    The iPhone tethering works well, if the iPhone already has good 3G reception *obvious point, i know*

    1. Hi Jolie, thanks a bunch for the helpful comments! Greatly appreciated! I surely agree with you on the patchiness of wi-fis at hotels; and almost about to give up on it altogether, till they understand that if they would want to provide a service they may as well do it, and if not just don’t provide it; it will save customers lots of hassle and frustration when that service is not there. Oh well, like I said, I have had enough of it, so moving on…

      … Moving on with a solution pretty similar to yours, that you have described above; think it’s about time as well to take the concept of mobility into a new height, for sure! I will let you know how it goes when I am all set up! :-))

      iPhone tethering is really nice, but still dependent on the provider, which, from what I know, at this point in time mine doesn’t allow me to access my VPN network, which renders it to almost useless… Oh well, may be next time around, too! 🙂

  4. I am ready to fill in your black list !
    I am also always surprised by the price we have to pay in Europe for those slow connections in hotels.
    In US and Asia, you have most of the time free and fast Internet acesses(And In Brazil Free Wifi access from the neighborhood ^^)
    Last Time in Italy, I get the same frustration you had in Spain. I had to use my personal 3G usb Stick to connect correctly my computer to the VPN network(at least the first day).
    How can we proceed to make them understand ?

    1. Hi Sebastien! Interesting and thoughtful comments! I guess this is something that us Europeans keep suffering from time and time again. Another example, last week I was in London, staying in Edgeware Road’s Hilton London Metropole hotel where there was wi-fi available, at the lovely price of 15 GBP per 24 hours or 70 GBP for a week (Was only staying there for 3 days :-((), so it looks like European hotels keep ripping us off to the point where we may just end up going the route of the 3G alternatives, but then again when going to other countries we enter the world of the wonderful roaming ripoff. Again!

      I’m not sure what we may be able to achieve or not in this space, but I’m already starting to question those hotels where I feel I’ve been completely robbed of a service they should provide for free, seeing the room charges they have got in place, in the first place! And to that list I’d have to add the Hilton London Metropole hotel as well. First & last time I’ll stay there!

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