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Comment by suvelx | Hacker News Reader

What is it with Hotels and shitty, restricted wifi in the west?

I can't say I've stayed in a lot of hotels, but of the ones I have stayed in, it's only ever been an issue in the West.

Perhaps that's a part of the reason I enjoy holidays in East Asia. I get the feeling wifi there is a just a thing, you get access to it, it works. And nearly all the hotels I've stayed in also offer a free phone that you can take with you if you need data outside of the hotel.

Yet, in the west, you're lucky if you get some paltry free allowance. For a business who's aim is "make your stay enjoyable" they're doing a pretty shit job of it.

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My experience is, the more business traveler oriented the hotel, the more likely you'll be charged for WiFi.

My theory is, often companies have a limit for room prices for their employees, but WiFi fees count additional other expenses so they won't matter for the selection of the hotel.

So as a business traveler you don't care to be charged 20$/day for WiFi, your employer will pay for it. Hotels make nice extra money. Only "normal" guests who care, will be annoyed.

In medium tier Hotels and especially Hostels all around the world I never experienced any WiFi restrictions.

I travel a lot and I don't remember the last time I paid for WiFi anywhere aside from the occasional mandatory "resort fee" that covered a number of things including WiFi. It's true that a number of chains waive WiFi only if you are a member of a rewards program and book through their site but I always do so.

> My experience is, the more business traveler oriented the hotel, the more likely you'll be charged for WiFi.

I've had the opposite experience. My wife and I usually stay at Hampton Inn or Hilton properties on vacation, two star "business traveler oriented" locations with free breakfast and free low-speed WiFi. It's fast enough for everything except streaming video in HD, and we always bring a Raspberry Pi with a thumb drive full of TV shows and/or movies we want to see while on vacation. Most of the places we've stayed even had free HBO/Showtime for when we want to watch something random.

Conversely, for our fifth anniversary we stayed at a luxury suite for the weekend, and we had to pay for any WiFi whatsoever, and for breakfast (admittedly a much nicer breakfast experience than other hotels).

You are saying the same thing.

It boils down to: Mid-price hotels often have free wifi. Expensive hotels charge much more often. Cheap hotels are a tossup.

My experience as a business traveler is basically: 5-10 years ago I had to pay really expensive Wifi, today I haven't paid any Wifi for a long time.

Business travellers typically have a contract thru their employer with the hotel that covers the wifi. They almost never pay for wifi as an additional charge. The wifi charge is because these business type hotels attract few people who would pay for wifi, so might as well make them pay for it. Free wifi, in essence, is not a marketable amenity for these hotels.

WiFi in China, in general, was incredibly shitty and I have been in hotels in 'the west' where I'd get 50 mbit, but I have also had crappy wifi experiences. So I think you get shitty internet in both east and west, as is to be expected when 50 or more devices try to stream Netflix at the same time on the same internet connection.

Luckily, in the EU at least, you can roam with your own 4G connection everywhere and having a 120 KB/s connection is a thing of the past.

Exactly. Of the 6 or so different resort hotels i have visited in the canary islands etc, maybe one had good wifi/internet. But since the EU rules changed, i just connected via 4G - problem solved.

in eu you can roam free but unlimited is limited, i had a unlimited connection in my country but in roaming its 10gb

It still beats paying €5/MB like in the olden days.

My theory is that these hotels were the very first to get wifi, when it was a premium feature. Because it works or perhaps because of contractual obligations with their service provider, they're reluctant to change their model now.

The hotels in East Asia got wifi later, where it was easier to set up and therefore more likely to be offered for free.

>wifi ... was a premium feature

Which millennium are we talking about?

Wifi isn't all that much older than our current millennium, Mister Time Traveller from the distant future.

I think you mean decade or something? 'Cause even in the states I remember when we finally setup Wi-Fi in the mid to late 2000's and that was still not too long ago... I guess it didn't feel like a premium feature to people who bought it for their home, but for a hotel who has to rely on their ISP to setup everything for them, it definitely is a premium service.

I wouldn't be surprised if the contracts hotels have are pay per use, so they barely pay much to have the services. Why change that model and give everyone free Wi-Fi. It's the cheaper motels that usually offer free Wi-Fi.

>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

>Introduced September 1998; 20 years ago

I remember going to Los Angeles in 2006 and having to wardrive and set up camp behind a Chinese restaurant to get free WiFi.

Also, East Asia skipped wired internet completely and went straight from nothing to mobile.

And internet is cheap, really cheap, in East Asia. I'm in Vietnam at the moment and my gf got a SIM card for unlimited 4G/LTE data for 15 days (the length of a visa-free visit here) for $8. That's the expensive foreigner price. I didn't even bother getting a SIM - she hotspots me on the rare times we're somewhere that there isn't free WIFI.

I was in Cambodia earlier in the year, and was paying US$1/week for effectively-unlimited data (250Gb each week). Thailand is a bit more pricey for farang, but still not bad. Australia was AU$1/day for 30Gb over 30 days. It's not a huge expense, but the difference is noticeable.

I think it's the nature of the market. There's no way that SE Asians would pay Western prices for internet, so the price comes down.

> East Asia skipped wired internet completely and went straight from nothing to mobile.

In those countries you mentioned yes. Cambodia isn't representative for SEA, it's a very poor and poorly managed country. Go to Malaysia and Singapore and physical infrastructure is common.

> That's the expensive foreigner price. > Thailand is a bit more pricey for farang

Not sure why you are paying "foreigner price" for sim-card/data in Thailand or Cambodia. You can just go to any shop and you will be charged the same price as anyone else.

> There's no way that SE Asians would pay Western prices for internet, so the price comes down.

A few other things to note:

* There is no net neutrality in these countries, data packages includes 'unlimited' or big data allowances restricted to Facebook/Youtube.

* Data connection is great in cities like Phnom Penh but as soon as you get out on the countryside you are back to a slow 3G connection (improving though). So: it's a lot cheaper to build infrastructure for a limited area.

* Cambodia is a very flat country making it a lot easier to build mobile networks compared to some European countries or in the US.

It's a common experience to go to a 7/11 in Bangkok and try to buy one of the cheaper top-up packages, and then get told they're not available. Only the expensive ones are available. Yet strangely the cheap ones are available for locals.

Also, people don't seem to have any objections to mobile towers being built near them. In the UK & Australia there's a lot of NIMBYism and fear about mobile towers being built near schools (especially). It can get really expensive to build a tower in a rich suburb.

Ok, haven't had that experience but I haven't really stayed in the very backpacker/touristy areas in BKK lately. Also I usually go to a phone company store and just buy the sim and top up enough for my short stay there.

> The hotels in East Asia got wifi later

Nope. I had wifi in most guesthouses, hotels and cafes when backpacking SEA in 2007. Back in Europe a year later or NYC in 2010 it was still difficult to find wifi in hotels and cafes. Hotels would have a LAN-connection though.

I once stayed in a hotel 11 years ago with an ethernet cable which was awesome.

My guess would be the time they installed it. Those that were early had to pay more for the hardware and agreements and saw it as an optional extra charged at a premium.

Now that it's a commodity, the cost of hardware has reduced and simply giving a wifi password is simple for new installations. But those who did it earlier may not justify replacing it for something that's free, because what they have 'works' for them.

I'm probably wrong, but wouldn't be surprised.

it's no better for me Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, ... slow, bad signals, stupid captive portals serving no purpose.

I’m staying at a hotel in Hong Kong right now with horrible, shitty WiFi. So not just a “west” problem it seems...

The more expensive the hotel the greater the chance they charge for WiFi access.

More an issue in the US than "the West" in general

Don't kid yourself. I know places in Europe where they charge you extra for the AC remote control. I wish I was joking.

Well, bad hotels exist everywhere, but this specific wifi issue is more American from my experience

All the hotels I’ve stayed in Asia have had paid WiFi

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