There oughta be a law about ‘high speed’

April 17, 2007 by Jeff Jarvis

I paid $12 a day at the hoary Hilton in Las Vegas for high-speed internet access but it was hardly high-speed. Pictures loaded at the speed of dialup, if that. There ought to be an accepted definition of and standard for “high-speed” access — one the industry itself should set, if it were smart — and if that access doesn’t meet the mark, we should get refunds. You can’t call food low-fat if it’s not. You shouldn’t be able to call internet access high-speed if it’s slow.

  • http://www.venicechronicles.com Shaun Rotman

    Now these are word of wisdom that should have been said long ago. For future, you can always call down to the front desk and have them remove the charge for the connectivity citing “poor service.” I have done so with Hilton in past as the quality of connection varies from one location to the next.

    If you’re paying for it, you’re entitled to your money’s worth!

  • http://datamining.typepad.com/data_mining Matthew Hurst

    We are currently traveling and at our hotel, the ‘hi-speed internet’ was so slow that Wakako called it ‘no-speed internet.’

  • http://www.VenturesWithoutCapital.com Bruce Judson

    Jeff:

    You are right of course.

    Nonetheless, so long as we can’t control the hotels or airports, here’s one alternative. You can decide to bypass hotel and airport services, and still receive high speed access anywhere on your laptop.

    About two months ago I posted an article on the availability of wireless broadband anywhere services at http://www.ventureswithoutcapital.com/archives/23. You pay a subscription fee, receive an easy to insert special card for your laptop, and typically achieve pretty fast speeds nationwide. I use it commuting on the train, in hotels and airports, and as a backup source of broadband for my home office as well.

  • http://www.VenturesWithoutCapital.com Bruce Judson

    Note: The link in my comment above does not work because the period at the end of the sentence was added to the link. The correct link is:

    http://www.ventureswithoutcapital.com/archives/23

  • http://tojou.blogspot.com/ Mindy McAdams

    What’s really ironic is that at cheaper hotels, such as those with “suite” or “inn” in the name, there’s often perfectly good wireless provided in the room for no charge at all. For business, however, I often stay at top Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt hotels where the Internet service is quite often very poor, even when it’s Ethernet — and on top of that, you must pay ($12 is the common charge per day now).

    What Shaun said is true — they will usually remove the charge without an argument. But it bugs me that they have this daily fee and then see no reason to provide acceptable service.

  • http://shakewellbeforeuse.com Ariel Waldman

    I wish. I can’t count how many times I just about through my Powerbook at someone out of dialup speed disturbance.

  • http://www.craft2.org sue

    mindy is so right

    why is it that expensive places charge for extras you get free at motel 6.

  • http://www.lostremote.com David Johnson

    amen.

  • Laura Unger

    It’s not just at hotels that this is a problem. Currently, consumers generally do not know what speed they are really getting at home or anywhere. In many cases, the speeds are much different than the advertised speeds. The government needs to develop a standard and a reporting mechanism that consumers can use to evaluate speeds and there should be accountability. For that to happen it must be part of Public Policy to build high speed, affordable internet for all Americans. There are good proposals on this and a speed test that compares your upload and download speed with others in your state, the country and the world on http://www.speedmatters.org . Check it out.

  • http://www.sixtysecondview.com David Brain

    Jeff this drives me nuts all over Europe as well. Why does it cost me extra to the room anyway? Why is it so slow? Why do I have to go through the weird dance of getting scratch cards from reception or ringing down for a pin number or whatever? Why is it (as you say) mislabeled so often? Is there not a good hotel guide for this? I would happily boycot hotels that put me through this.

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