Hotels w/ High-Speed Internet Access? 28
jroysdon asks: "I'm going on a company-paid conference trip to LA for Cisco Networkers in late June. Cisco has a list of hotels nearby that they've nogetiated rates with, but the first 3 I've checked don't have any high-speed internet access (just data jacks for modems). At $.60 a pop per local call, I might as well find a place that's going to get me a decent connection, and plus the company's paying for it and some of the time I'll be spending keeping up on company email, etc. Does anyone know of a good travel site that lists geek-friendly amenities like high-speed internet access, or even 802.11 wireless? At this rate, I'll probably be staying 11 miles away instead of a few blocks so I can have something better than a modem. The hardest thing is getting the 800-number attendants to understand what I mean when I ask: 'Do you have RJ-11 data ports in any of your rooms?'" Honestly, until broadband access becomes a bit more common-place in the US (much less everywhere else), you won't see many hotels offering ethernet service as a selling point, however it would be nice to see a website that lists them as they show up.
Crowne Plaza (Score:1)
Mariott Hotels (Score:4)
Most of the high end Marriott hotels (Marriott, Rennaissance) I've stayed at have high speed access in the rooms provided by STSN.
There's a little box on the desk with an RJ-11 connection for modems, a USB port and a 10BaseT connection. The closet has a USB cable and a ethernet patch cable.
It's not free- generally there's a $10/day or so charge for the service.
STSN has a web site at STSN Home [stsn.com] with a lookup function to find hotels with the service.
FYI, the Wyndam Checkers hotel is listed.
rob.Hate to think what they'd charge.. (Score:1)
Hotels are such bastards when it comes to phone charges. I've had some rotten ones in my time, but my wife just got back from Atlanta where she was reporting on the IBM PartnerWorld conference.. while there, she had to dial back to the UK a few times to upload some stuff to her work - the hotel billed her $US30.00 a MINUTE for the international calls..
(don't know what they should cost, but our rate for calling the US from here is 3p (~4.5c) per minute)
So if they'll mark up a phone call to 600x it's actual price, I shudder to think what they'd charge you for high-speed internet access..
RJ11 ... for Data Access? (Score:3)
Perhaps this is why the 800 number zombies arent understanding what you're asking?
---
Re:Mariott Hotels (Score:1)
Then I stayed at a Marriot in Dayton, Ohio. There was a cable modem in the room (which needed to be rebooted, which needed 3rd level support, plus moving the fscking huge television cabinet, but I digress). $9.95 a day. It fits neatly under "Phone Calls" on the expense voucher. So I gave it a try.
I was an instant convert. I got a cable modem on the first day they were doing installations in my neighbourhood.
--
Re:Hate to think what they'd charge.. (Score:1)
Negotiated rates (Score:3)
Which protocols did they try?
Re:Mariott Hotels (Score:2)
However, my experience is that STSN provides mediocre service at best. I have used it in at least half a dozen different hotels over the past year and usually get 100-150K throughput. Not a lot of additional speed for $10/day.
Finally, on a more positive note, I recently stayed at the Four Seasons Austin (sometimes it pays to travel a lot). I do not remember the name of the service, but it wasn't STSN. I-something, I think. But it rocked! Averaged 300K+ on the few measurements I did.
Speaking of hotels with high speed access (Score:2)
Hilton Garden Inn (Score:2)
--
Re:Mariott Hotels (Score:2)
BTW, if you ever have to go to San Francisco, keep Oakland airport in mind. It is almost always cheaper to fly into than SFO, and Dollar and National rental cars are right there outside the terminal.
W Hotels (Score:3)
Yes, here's the web site (Score:5)
Has a list of hotels all over the world and what kind of geek amenities they offer.
No auto link, cuz you'll want to remember it, and I'm sick of goatse.cx links.
Re:They already do (Score:2)
Well, it would depend on the actual wiring you've got there, but at the college I worked for a lot of the old wiring was over RJ11 cables, and we just used RJ11-RJ45 patch cables. Okay, so they wouldn't hold 100Base-T or Gigabit, but they work fine for 10Base-T, and much easier than rewiring a few whole buildings.
Re:Negotiated rates (Score:1)
My guess would be Dynamic Hotel Cost Protocol.
Or maybe Symmetric Negotiation of Motel Prices.
You're obviously asking the wrong question. (Score:4)
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
Re:RJ11 ... for Data Access? (Score:1)
The negative side, correct me if i'm wrong, there is no industry standard for RJ-11 networking, not to mention the expense of buying a RJ-11 NIC. Surely would be cool if they could implement ethernet over RJ11 and then have RJ-45 to RJ-11 converters
- Slash
Here is the ultimate list of geek hotels (Score:1)
"hacking" STSN hotel Internet access (Score:2)
Re:Mariott Hotels (Score:2)
Your speed could probably be explained by the fact that it gets tunneled through Salt Lake City. IIRC, when I was in a Marriott in San Francisco there were, something like, 18 hops back to Halifax, and I was behind two or three levels of masquerading. Apparently, you can do a PPTP VPN only if you're the only guy doing it. IPSec is generally out of the question.
In fact, it's fairly rare to get a real IP in a hotel. Our server allows the user to select whether they want a masqueraded or real IP when you open up a browser, if the site has any and you're willing to pay a few extra dollars.
Ooops, I've rambled...
That's CAIS' [cais.com] I-Port, now owned by Cisco. It runs on a Windows NT server.
They already do (Score:2)
The converters are made by Tut Systems and cost about $170 for a 1 megabit converter.
Why they didn't just wire the place with cat 5, I don't know.
Re:They already do (Score:1)
- Slash
Hiltons generally... (Score:1)
I know that the Costa Mesa Hilton (Newport Beach) has ADSL (I was there last month). I presume that other LA area Hiltons have it as well.
--
LodgeNet.Com (Score:1)
Re:Hate to think what they'd charge.. (Score:1)
Oh come on. Did she make a 5-second call and you extrapolated from that? There are some shysters out there but I highly doubt any of them are charging two thousand dollars an hour for $5 phone calls.
What's the name of the hotel?
High-Speed Hotels (Score:1)
Re:Mariott Hotels (Score:1)
I recently stayed at the Marriott Marquis in Manhatten for the Linuxworld Expo and the STSN hookup there was getting ~70Kbytes/s !
That's a great deal faster than dialup and allowed me to download ~200MB of updates after I had to re-install my laptop following an APM/UDMA snafu (incredibly badly trashed root partition).
YMMV
Tim
Re:W Hotels (Score:2)