To see what's going on, you've got to recognize the real problem afflicting a profit-maximizing hotel manager: Some guests are willing to pay more than others. That makes for an unpalatable choice: If you charge $100 for a room, you give an unnecessary discount to everyone who would have paid $120. But if you charge $120, you drive all the $100 customers away.And so on.
Actually, what I've found is that the cheaper the hotel, the more likely it is to offer free Internet access (be it wireless or wireful), for what I perceive to be two basic reasons. The first is that, as a cheaper or perhaps "less desirable" hotel, it's probably offering all sorts of "extra" perks to get people to stay there--like free HBO (it's amazing that that still appears on hotel--or motel, actually--signs). The second reason is that pricier hotels tend to attract business travelers who are often less cost-conscious (but not always) and are more willing to shell out $10-$20 a day for Internet access, particularly if it can be expense-accounted. (Even if it can't, a business traveler may have no alternative, given this annoying age of 24/7 availability to those who hold dominion over us.) This was the case when I stayed at the Hyatt in Chicago last September--they wanted $20 a day for Internet access. Uh, no. (Fortunately, I was there for a trade show and could get free access in the press lounge at McCormick Place.) The Hyatt also managed to charge for just about eveything else, too (the "safe charge," or a charge in the event I wanted to use the in-room safe--was the one that got me). They didn't appreciate it at the front desk when I asked if there was a "hanger usage fee." (Check out this link for an interesting discussion of the economics of the "hidden fee.")
But even when Internet access is free, it's usually less than robust; a couple of Hampton Inns I've been to either had extremely weak wireless signals (one required going to the lobby to get any signal) and one had an in-room wired connection, but with a v-e-e-e-e-ery short cable that required some extraordinary feats of balancing and contortion to use.
So far, the best hotel chain I've been in vis-a-vis Internet access is the Marriott Courtyard. Most of the ones I've been to have free wireless access, it's usually robust, and you can usually pick it up in the rooms.
But then again, when I travel for leisure (such as to Syracuse for games), I rarely take a computer (there's a reason it's called "leisure"), so I can't speak for every chain.
The whole "hotels offering Internet access" is still pretty new (when I did my Southwestern jaunt in 2002, all Internet access had to be done over phone lines and only a few hotels at that time had any high-speed access). As more people start demanding Internet access when they travel, more hotels will have no choice but to offer it--and I expect in a few years only the priciest and most annoying hotels will still be able to charge extra for it.
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