Slow "Hi-Speed" Internet in almost every Honors property
 

Sorry for this rant...

Is it me, or is the "hi-speed" internet in hotels these days extremely slow? I'm a hhonors loyalist, staying mostly at HI and HGI, and it seems that 80% of my stays, I get a hi-speed connection that is barely above dial-up speeds. I mean, its laughable.

There have been a few real Hiltons where their internet (presumably paid for non-diamond members) has been decent. But the majority of my stays are awful -- even forcing me to go to the local starbucks or panera to get better internet service.

Can we really call this "hi-speed" anymore?

Sometimes I'm forced into tethering off my blackberry because 3G speeds are faster than the hhonors internet. That is just sad.

Right now i'm getting .44mbps. At home I get 25mbps. This is just pathetic.

When will these properties realize that hi-speed -- real hi-speed -- is important to business travelers, and a necessity these days? I'm almost willing to change my allegiance from hhonors to something else, if they can guarantee me faster internet.

The standard is anything over dial up's 56k speed is considered hi speed. That of course doesn't mean much in days of speeds way faster available, but if it's over dial up speed, it's considered Hi Speed.

I do agree with you though, I've used my mifi in many hotel rooms because it was considerably faster than the so called hi speed connection they were providing was.

It should get better as AT&T takes over all the properties, but not sure how long that will take.

It isn't always just hilton. I stayed at a marriott in SF a few weeks ago and was stuck paying something $14.95 a day for SLOW internet that was wired (the didn't even have wifi). The third day I was using my ipod in the room and noticed the apple store a couple blocks away was coming up for wireless and it worked. I tried it with my laptop and it not only worked, it was a LOT faster being over a block away than the wired internet I was paying for in my room.

Sometimes you can connect on another businesses wifi and get a better speed. When I stay at the hampton in Windsor there is another property hotel across the street that is unsecured and depending on where I am at in the HI, I can get a faster speed connecting to their WIFI than the hamptons. There is also another Hampton Inn I stayed at one time with a schlotskys next door that had free wifi and I had a better connection speed connecting to theirs than HI's.

As a hotel desk clerk once told me, 7pm to midnight is the "porn window" when lots of guests are downloading you-know-what -- and that speeds are generally significantly higher in the mornings.

It really bugs me what they get away with in terms of 'high speed' internet. I've had faster wifi access on my AA flight than the wired access in a lot of Hilton rooms. I stay at a mix of high end Hiltons, HGVC properties, some Resort locations and Conrads. In fairness I find the access at Conrad to be more than adequate but the rest are awful

In Orlando in August at the HGVC on I Drive I had trouble loading the Google homepage half the time, anything remotely complicated was a bridge too far

I'm in the "porn window" right now and I'm running at about 20 mbps. I'm at a filled to the brim Hampton right now. Tomorrow I'll be at an ES which is usually a bit faster than this place. I think it depends on the hotel. Of course, the places I stay get a lot business from several local Fortune 500 companies so my hotels may have "upgraded" their offerings to ensure they get lots of business from these companies.

At this very moment I'm in a property (I'll name names, the Hilton Lisle/Naperville) where the wifi is, frankly, jacked up, and doesn't work on the top half of the floors in the hotel.

It's maddening, and is going to cause me to stay elsewhere on my next trip.

Hmmmm. Yep. I spent a week or so at CCGVA (HI in Virginia). We had a nice corner room, but I only got half a bar on my IPad for the entire week. Had to stand by the door if I wanted to pick up anything at all.

0.44mps is not slow.

The majority of broadband in many countries is under 2mbps - so to get 0.44 on a shared connection is not poor.

The FCC standard for broadband has been >200 kbps since ~1999, although it now acknowledges that is not adequate for current content.

FWIW, the wifi in many Hilton properties is fine.

However, when wifi problems do occur they seem to make a disproportionate appearance in Hilton affiliated hotels. The conclusion is that maintaining wifi speed is not something that is emphasized in the franchise agreement.

Two recent examples......

During repeated 2009 stays, the wifi at the HGI in Beaumont TX was worthless. When I discussed this with the front desk, I was told to call the wifi provider. It wasn't a hotel problem.

The wifi at the MCI ES is also garbage. During my first and last stay there, the router was so slow that I checked out early and went to the airport in order to get my work done.

I think that the wifi at Beaumont is an insufficient bandwidth problem..the MCI problem was probably related to not having sufficient router coverage...arghhh

Many other Hilton hotels have been fine. Never had a problem at any of the Hampton Inns

In my experience, as a chain, IC properties (across all brands) seem to offer the best wifi experience.

I'm hoping this is one of those things where the lower case m means something different than the upper case M (not common to distinguish in the US), as 20 mbps is incredibly fast, it's faster for example than the base priced FIOS plan. Most people would kill for that kind of speed, and even if they got it, their wireless connection was probably running slower than that.

Actually in 2008 the FCC changed the definition of Broadband to 768 down, 200 up, and is currently seeking comments to change it again. I'm sure the hotel has broadband, as they measure it at the router, they just don't get it out to the rooms.

Most hotels though advertise hi-speed, which the FCC does not define.

I think most of the FT hotel forums have complaints about slow internet.

I was chatting w/ a GM of a European hotel last month, and they're upgrading their servers or whatever it is that makes the stuff go fast.

But they're also thinking of creating a pricing model where those who hog the bandwidth (watching movies of any type, for example) will get a pop-up after a certain amount of time saying, you've used X & if you would like to continue using X, please click her to pay a fee of Y. Then they have the option to do so or not, and the folk who aren't downloading movies or whatever aren't being penalized.

I'm paraphrasing what he said & it's been a month since the conversation, so if it's a bit off it's on me. But I think you get the idea.

Cheers.

Oops. Might have missed a decimal there. I'm reading 6-9 Mbps plugged into the office wall and about 4 over the office wireless. So I'd guess it was 2.0 not 20 last night.