E-Media Tidbits

hotelchatter.com Intercontinental Hotels, which owns Holiday Inn, is one of several chains that made Hotelchatter.com's "worst wifi" list this year.

Journalists tend to travel a lot, and we tend to stay up late at night finishing stories and doing research. Consequently, journalists increasingly depend upon good broadband access at hotels -- preferably wireless (wifi), in guest rooms and the lobby.

...At least, that's the hope. But as we all know, the reality of hotel net access (at least in the U.S.) often falls short.

HotelChatter.com recently published its annual review of hotel brands with the best and worst wifi experiences. It's pretty discouraging -- but if filing from the road is a must for you, it's helpful to look over this list before making lodging arrangements.

According to HotelChatter, "Instead of finding more and more hotels offering free wifi, we are finding more restrictions are being added to free hotel wifi. For instance, you can get free wifi in the lobby, but in-rooms it's ethernet and it starts at $9.95. Or you can get free wifi in your rooms but you need to belong to a hotel's loyalty program or be assigned a code with a special password. So while wireless networks in hotels has reached near ubiquity, it is amazing that consistent wireless Internet access, pricing, and service, is not a given across hotel brands, small hotel groups, or even from the lobby to your room."

In my experience, even in-room wired (ethernet) connectivity is dicey at hotels. I've encountered broken cables (I always carry my own now), staggeringly slow speeds (probably sharing a connection between too many rooms), login systems that don't work or that try to bill me multiple times per day, and tech support that has simply hung up on me.

And back in January, Tidbits contributor Alan Abbey wrote about airport wifi pricing absurdities.

If you really need wifi on the road, and if there's good cell coverage where you're staying on the road, a generally more reliable option is a mobile broadband connection card. Several mobile phone providers offer these, including Sprint, Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile. Of course, buying this service from mobile providers isn't cheap.

Or you can try to find a local free or cheap wifi hotspot, maybe at a coffee shop. They might not let you hang out until you file at 2 a.m., though. Here's a "wifinder" tool from USA Today I've had good luck with.

(Thanks to Future Tense for the tip.)