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Many hotels offer high-speed Internet access, but it often comes at a price. Plan ahead to keep your business flowing smoothly on the road.

By Donna Williams | 
 

If you travel with your laptop, high-speed access is a must-have. Just a few short years ago, trying to connect to the Internet from your hotel room was an iffy proposition, with many older properties having noisy phone lines that resulted in extremely low-connection speeds. Today, most major business-oriented hotels offer some form of high-speed Net access -- either wired (Ethernet) or wireless (Wi-Fi).

The odds of finding high-speed Net access runs in direct proportion to your room rate. Almost all luxury, upscale, and midprice hotels that cater to business travelers offer it; most economy chains -- and chains catering to family vacationers -- don't. If your favorite upscale hotel doesn't have high-speed Net access yet, just wait a few months, and it will. In the midprice category, business travel-oriented chains have rolled out free high-speed Net access as a standard feature to all or most of their properties.

The following chains offer free in-room high-speed Net access as a standard feature:

  • Best Western (all properties by September)
  • Clarion (free in-room Wi-Fi planned for all hotels by mid-2004)
  • Comfort Suites (free in-room Wi-Fi planned for all hotels by mid-2004)
  • Courtyard
  • Country Inns & Suites
  • Doubletree Club Hotels
  • Four Points by Sheraton
  • Residence Inn
  • TownePlace Suites
  • SpringHill Suites
  • Fairfield Inn (all properties by mid-2004)
  • Staybridge
  • Hampton Inns
  • Hilton Garden Inn
  • Holiday Inn
  • Holiday Inn Select
  • Holiday Inn Express
  • Wingate (also offers free in-room Wi-Fi)

Pricing and availability at higher-end properties is all over the board, with hotels charging from $9.95-$14.95/day or offering free access. In addition, look for programs and packages like Marriott's Wired for Business (also offered at Renaissance Hotels), which offers high-speed Net access and unlimited local and long-distance phone calls (within the U.S.) for $9.95 per day ($12.95 in New York locations). Westin has a similar program for $16 in about half of its hotels.

Here is a roundup of wired Net access points:

Property Availability of in-room wired high-speed Net access Cost
Crowne Plaza All hotels by the end 2004 Pricing varies.
Howard Johnson About 12% of hotels (in the U.S. and Canada) Pricing varies.
Hyatt 80% of hotels have high-speed access (half are wired, half are Wi-Fi). Hyatt aims to have 100% of its hotels equipped by the end of 2004.

Typical high-speed hotel Net service is relatively easy to use. You connect an Ethernet cable supplied by the hotel to a high-speed modem in your room and your PC. Your computer should recognize the new connection -- and vice versa -- and, after taking a few minutes to subscribe, you should be up and running. You don't even need to change any of your laptop's network settings.

Some hotels are skipping wired Net access completely and going directly to wireless, via the Wi-Fi standard. With a Wi-Fi connection, all you need is a wireless access card in your PC and you're ready to connect -- no cables to fuss with.

Business Travel Almanac.

About the Business Travel Almanac: Praised and recommended by the New York Times, the Business Travel Almanac is a must-have tool for any serious business traveler.

Content is extracted from the Business Travel Almanac (ISBN 0-7897-2934-2, $19.99 USD, Que Publishing) with permission from Pearson Education.


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