"rb" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:
>When travelling and staying in motels with wireless hotspots, can I
>generally count on being able to connect to the internet from my room,
>regardless of location? Or, am I sometimes going to have to go to the
>lobby to go online?
You can find out in advance by looking up the hotels on the internet
and checking their web site, or using various hotel directories. At
least that's the theory. I stayed at a hotel last summer where the
wi-fi was totally useless, misconfigured, and did not cover the entire
hotel, despite what their web site claimed. However, they also had
ethernet in every room, which worked fine after I bought a cheap USB
to ethernet adapter and cable.
There's also a strange thing called a "data port" on some hotel web
sites. In most cases, it's genuine ethernet. In other cases, it's a
dedicated dialup phone line, that goes through their switchboard PABX,
that only dials some ISP. 20Kbits/sec on a good day but better than
nothing. If their web pile says "data port", you'll need to ask what
manner of "data port" they offer.
Motels are somewhat different from hotels, in that they're cheap.
Really cheap. Cheaper than your worst imagination can conjure. If
there's a way to cut corners, then the motel owner will do it. Wi-Fi
and internet service is one of those things that doesn't generate
direct revenue, but which they can't ignore. It's generally
considered by owners as a waste of money and by managers as a waste of
their time.
Be prepared for some rather minimal motel installations. I know of
one local motel that has Wi-Fi in the managers office, which covers
about half the rooms if you place the laptop in the window. The other
half are covered from the laundry room, and only works if the laundry
room door is propped open. I walk by this place on the way to lunch
erratically and the door is almost always propped open.
Another local motel has apparently decided that a 2.4GHz power
amplifier is the answer to their coverage problems. I can see their
system in my palatial office, about 1500 ft away. Just one problem, I
can't connect to their wireless unless I'm practically in their
parking lot. Incidentally, this is called an "alligator" which is an
animal with a big mouth (transmit) and small ears (receive). No clue
on how well their one and only access point covers their rooms.
I have one motel customer. The manager will not call me when a
customer complains. This is because the owner discovered that every
time someone calls with a vague complaint, I arrive with a vague
diagnosis and an invoice. So, only the owner is allowed to call me
with a complaint. The problem is that the owner only visits the motel
on weekends. To avoid having to pay my exorbitant weekend and holiday
rate, he always calls Monday morning complaining that the internet has
been down for a week. Cheap would be an understatement. However,
there is hope. About 1/2 of the rooms now have a wired ethernet port
which stays up and is working just fine if the manager remember to
power cycle their cheapo router. Incidentally, I'm not surprised that
the wi-fi is flaky at this location because the motel is line of sight
to a large hotel converted into a college student dormitory.
Incidentally, there are two ways to do wired ethernet. The right way
is with isolated network ports using a multi-port router. This
isolates clients from each other so that users don't see each other
(or attack each other). The wrong way is to plug everyone into one
big ethernet switch, or series of small ethernet switches, where
everyone can see everyone else on the system. The latter seems to be
more common in motels. Make sure your laptops software firewall is
functional.
I don't know if this is the typical or if I just happen to run into
the worst case motels. I'm not much of a traveler and don't really
have a good feel for how the rest of the worlds motels operate. Good
luck.
--
Jeff Liebermann
(E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558
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