WiFi woes

[Stryker One]

Interesting

A few years ago my company sent to the Boston area to do some work at a customers site. Since the trip was last minute, the only rooms left in the area were at a 5 star hotel, that charged something ridiculous like $10.00/HOUR for Internet. Funny thing though, this hotel was right across the street from MIT, specifically, one of MITs media labs. They had free open Wi-Fi with insane bandwidth, funny the hotel never noticed that, or maybe they just thought that most of their guest wouldn't even look elsewhere.

I've also stayed at hotels where the Wi-Fi is free and usually the bandwidth sucks.

[dendawg]

I've also stayed at hotels where the Wi-Fi is free and usually the bandwidth sucks.

Yep...the thing about free WiFi is sometimes you get what you pay for.

[EricKei]

Yep...the thing about free WiFi is sometimes you get what you pay for.

That's a concept an old friend of mine just cannot seem to comprehend...He seems to think that free or heavily discounted items & services (not just WiFi -- tho he cannot get it through his head that not every store across the globe offers free high speed wifi) should ALWAYS be just as good as the high end expensive ones (that he may or may not have acquired legitimately)... I could never understand this mentality, he'll get all self-righteous and everything >_<

[Project_Mars]

Now, can you please explain this to the numerous SCs who insist "everywhere else has free WiFi"? Please? I will give you cookies if you do this for me.

Potential SC: What do you mean you pay for Wi-Fi? I get it free from my neighbors at home. It should be free everywhere!

I'm sure everyone i retail knows about the "My neighbors have Wi-Fi, but they have it password protected. can you help me get on their network?" customer.

The kind that i (and probably you) point out as a good reason to password protect your network. (Granted, in driving said point across, i tend to dip into scare tactics (If Google can grab stuff off an unsecured Wi-Fi Router while doing the image maps things, I'm pretty sure a hacker in a van could.), but no outright lies. (Although considering the customers i tend to point out said information to, tend to be older, this doesn't mean I'm unprepared for politics... or so the unfunny joke would go.)

[taxguykarl]

$3.24 for 24 hours sounds cheap to me... Suck it up and pay.

Or go to FedEx Office (formerly Kinko's) and pay $0.25 per minute. While there are plenty of places with free wi-fi, they are not secured, so your price sounds reasonable.

[Demolition Man]

This thread reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0zt4opqL18

I absolutely love EWs who think they are entitled to get free internet just because their neighbors have their wifi router protected. I have a neighbor who tried to pull that on me just because he's an major cheapy. I finally had to explain to him that it was against my ISP's terms of service (which is true) and that I'm not paying for him to leech off of my connection. He finally got the point and signed up for the cheapest "economy" service the DSL provider in my area has.

On that note $3ish per day for Wifi is cheap. I would have no beefs paying that.

[bhskittykatt]

We sold cards where you scratch off the 24 hour access code.

We used to have that. We just switched providers and they don't have scratch cards, so now we just give them a code off our list.

You probably do know what chain I work for. I don't really try to hide it. Hint: we're so cheap we don't even give you shampoo bottles in the rooms.

[Geek King]

I've also stayed at hotels where the Wi-Fi is free and usually the bandwidth sucks.

I played LOTRO from my room while a gaming convention was in town. The places I stayed at were pretty robust. Maybe Columbus, Portland, and Indianapolis are just awesome like that, though.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Seems like most hotels I've been to that didn't have free internet charged $10 per 24 hour period, whether it was wired or wireless. I try to find hotels that have it free.

[underemployeed]

They had free open Wi-Fi with insane bandwidth, funny the hotel never noticed that, or maybe they just thought that most of their guest wouldn't even look elsewhere.

That is what I ALWAYS do.

I'm sure everyone i retail knows about the "My neighbors have Wi-Fi, but they have it password protected. can you help me get on their network?" customer.

I usually go with, sure, figure out who it is and over them a couple of bucks a month for the password.... People don't get that if they smart enough to turn on security, they probably use the internet enough to not want to share

This thread reminds me of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0zt4opqL18

AND WOW, I can't believe that woman just couldn't comprehend that while she did get free wi-fi for a bit, she shouldn't be mad when it up an disappears, I mean really, you WEREN'T paying for it. Bet she would also be pissed if she left the a house 5 ft from the road, and I stopped and started filling up 55 gallon drums because well I mean after all it was there.