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Comment by aurelianito | Hacker News Reader

The economics of airplane wifi remind me of the economics of the hotels wifi. Go to a 5-star hotel and you will pay 15 extra dollars for the priviledge of having a lousy internet access. Go to a small hostel and you will get good internet access for free.

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During my travels in northern Taiwan, I found that every hotel I stayed at had free wifi, free snacks, and free necessities like toothbrush, comb, etc. One place even stocked the fridge with a couple free sodas. The wifi was quite good, comparable to what one would expect from, say, a Starbucks. They did some throttling, but my tunnel back to the States fixed that.

It was a decidedly different and pleasant experience, compared to American hotels. The toilets were great too. The only downside is the amount of smoking that goes on in eastern Asia hotels (even if you're on a no smoking floor).

Marriott are throwing in wifi these days, but you have to pay for premium access if you want to stream some Netflix

I am at a Marriott now, and am streaming just fine...

What's the speed cap?

> Marriott are throwing in wifi these days, but you have to pay for premium access if you want to stream some Netflix

Note that this is after Marriott's best efforts to block all wifi hotspots to force guests to use hotel wifi:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/10/after-blocking-pe...

edit: a story from after Marriott unsuccessfully asked the FCC if hotel operators could block wifi hotspots on their properties from all their guests: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/01/fcc-blocking-wi-f...

No, that was one single Marriott and it was the conference center -- they were trying to force exhibitors to pay outrageous internet fees, not hotel guests.

The fine was for disrupting wifi hotspots in the convention space at a single Marriott, but Marriott then petitioned the FCC to allow them to do the same for any guest on their property, including properties without convention spaces[1]. The FCC turned them down.

(I've amended my original post to include a link from the conclusion of the whole affair)

[1] http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60000986872

Marriott owns ~20 different hotel brands. Some of those brands (e.g. Courtyard) offer free wi-fi, but others do not.

http://www.marriott.com/marriott/free_wifi.mi

It tends to also be location based. I find wi-fi at hotels in big cities almost universally bad, while the same hotels outside the cities to be generally good.

Many business travellers have a per-night cap on the amount they can spend on a hotel, but no cap for wifi expenses. Unbundling the wifi from the room charge means the hotel can capture customers for whom the rate would otherwise be 'over cap'.

I've noticed this most at mid-range places, rather than the upper or lower end of the market, which seems to treat wifi as a necessity.

You have to take advantage of that business traveler who is expensing everything has "has to have internet access for work."

My understanding (though I don't have any sources and it could just as easily be hearsay) is that nicer hotels jumped onto the new business model and signed long-lasting contracts with providers of internet service when things were just getting established. So it's less that nicer hotels are necessarily trying to milk you, and more that the nicer hotels jumped onto the bandwagon when it was still a bad financial decision, and are passing their bad luck onto you.

Of course, I wouldn't at all be surprised if your suggestion is right, and they're just trying to milk the more well off clients.

I'd be surprised to learn that any of these hotels had e.g. twelve-year linens contracts. For that reason it's really difficult to learn they signed an exclusive wifi service contract for that long. How did they know wifi would still exist now?

I complain (politely) about the internet fee at the desk, and more than 70% of the time its removed from the bill. The front desk almost always has authority to make those kinds of adjustments.

What are some things you say when politely complaining?

The exact reason people are resorting to WiFi hotspots more and more.

Is there a smartphone these days that doesn't come with hotspot capabilities? I use mine constantly, and more often than not (when traveling domestically in the U.S.) my LTE speeds far outstrip hotel/airport provided speeds.

Verizon.

I use mobile hotspots with Verizon all the time. I have a Galaxy s4.

The sort of people who go to expensive hotels don't care about expensive wifi, or wifi at all. Cheap hotels have to use it as a differentiator from each other.

It's the same reason that hotel minibar pricing is so high.

Don't worry, minibars are dying too: http://priceonomics.com/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-hotel-mini-...

It's hard to keep that level of pricing with convenience stores nearby and more and more companies unwilling to reimburse for the minibar.

Minibars are still a big thing in Asia, especially at resorts where convenience stores are probably far away.

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