High Speed Internet Access
 

Most of my stays are at Courtyards and Spring Hill Suites. In the last few months I have had slow or broken Internet connections during just about every stay. I know it's not a configuration issue since my computer/VPN works most everywhere else and at most of these hotels it worked at one time during my stay.
Is it just my bad luck or is this a real problem. I need to rely on these connections. To make matters worse the hotel employees generally don’t have a clue about this and it can take hours to know if the problem is real. Most recent examples:
Addison, TX SH
Houston IAH CY
SFO CY
San Jose CY
Greenbelt, MD CY

I am starting to think it's a bandwidth issue since many times it works at night but not the next morning when I suspect many more people are accessing at once.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

I stay at a variety of MI brands (CY, SHS, Mar, Ren, and FF). In just about all cases my response time varies depending on the time of day. For me since it is generally business locations, I typically find early to mid evening the slowest response time (e.g. business folks catching up on email and other home office matters). When I work in the hotel during the morning, that is generally faster. So I would agree that bandwidth appears to be an issue.

The other pattern I have noticed is properties that use DSL with external DSL modems in the rooms tend to have the most general connectivity/reliability issues. Sites that have wireless and/or traditional wired Ethernet work better. In general I have seen reliability improve over the past year. Late 2003/Early 2004 I can remember asking to have my room changed more than once due to broken Internet. Didn't have to ask once the remainder of last year or the beginning of this year. I do agree that when I do have to ask, the hotel staff is pretty useless. If the remote support line people from the ISP can't fix it, the solution has almost always been to change rooms. Once in a while, the hotel has someone who knows how to reset the CPE equipment at the hotel.

Overall, even though the response time is rarely as good as my home boradband connection, it still beats the h*** out of dialup. Price is right at limited services properties (FI, RI, CY, SHS). The wired for busines is an okay deal for me at full service properties since I also take advantage of the free long distance calls. Saves a lot of time on my cell phone minute allocation for the month. Bottom line, generally works well for me and Highspeed Internet access is must for me when selecting a property.

--Jon

Constant problems with Marriott Internet
 

No, it's not just you. I have been batting about .500 in all Marriott properties (including the full service hotels) with reliable, working Internet connections. It seems to be getting *slightly* better, but I still cringe every day I turn on the laptop and wonder whether it's going to work.

The good news is that when I call Wayport, they don't have to ask me any questions since I give them exactly the information they need in the order they seem to need it... Just two weeks ago was congratulated by the Wayport rep. for knowing exactly what he'd need to know before he could try to help me. I guess he wasn't too amused when I told him I wish I didn't know his routine so well, since that would mean that the equipment worked better than it did.

not to rub your nose in it, I am batting 1000 on the new Hampton Inn wireless networks. I was skeptical at first. But it has been a really pleasant surprise.

If interested, you can sometimes score some extra Marriott Reward points when you have internet issues. Whenever it happens to me, I send an email to the GM and ask for "a few extra MR points in my account". I've gotten anywhere from 400 points to 5000 points.

I think that many people clearly seek out a hotel that offers free highspeed, so, when it doesn't work, I think alternative compensation is quite reasonable.

The hotel employees don't have a clue because in a lot of cases the people who install the HSIA explain nothing to the staff before they leave.

At my brother's RI it was two spanish guys that worked six twenty hour days to do the installation and one of the guys spoke no English and the other guy spoke English but it was so heavily accented that you could not understand it.

Before they left they handed my brother, the GM, a packet of HSIA info that offered no tech support options for the hotel employees other than to just have everyone call GoldenTree's 800# for everything.

So the staff will most likely know nothing because they are taught nothing.

I've always been able to connect at CY, RI, Springhill, Marriott and Renaissance with the occasional speed issues. I was having VPN issues at CY but figured out I was allowing local LAN access with my VPN connection. Once I changed the settings, no problems. I recently stayed at the Springhill in Scottsdale. The hotel was wireless and the speed was outstanding.

I often have troubles at Marriott properties - not in accessing the Internet, but in logging on to my company's Outlook server. Too many timeouts or something.

The only solution that works for sure is go to Starbuck's or Kinkos and log on with T-Mobile :D

Indeed T-Mobile is great, and I just signed up fro their annual plan ($29.95 including 10,000 DL, AA or UA miles). Do any major hotel chains other than Hyatt (e.g. Marriott) offer it at their properties?

Hi,
I thought I would complete the thread. I wrote Marriott a comment via their web site and was very impressed with their response. I listed all of the hotels where I had problems and received an individual reply form each. 3 of 4 said they found a problem. One was a cut wire, another a known wireless bandwidth issue tehy claimed was being corrected and the last was not specific. The fourth said they would investigate but I never hear anything else. All that found something offered reward points as compensation. I replied to each thanking them for their response.

I wasted a lot of time on these problems but it's appreciated that they truly looked into this at multiple properties. As expected Marriott was very professional which is my past experience and is one reason why they are my first choice.

No question that most employees are low-tech. I called down to report a HS Internet access problem at a Houston property recently and a few minutes later, there was a knock at my door.
Opening the door, I saw a harried maintenance man who asked "What seems to be the problem?"
Looking down, I see he's carrying nothing but a plunger...still wet from the previous "repair" he had done....:eek:.

Had trouble for a couple hours last month at the Marriott Marquis in New York. Didn't think to ask for my money back.

Some interesting information. I've been staying at the Res. Inn in Carmel, Indiana. They suffer from HORRIBLE performance. After many nights of arguing with GoldenTree Communications, I talked to the front desk management. They told me that the are responsible for choosing a network provider, but Marriott "recommends" GoldenTree.

In talking with GoldenTree technical support (especially their level one people), they have no concept of users who are technical (I'm a network manager). I can't tell you how many times they said "did you plug in the power to the cable modem" etc, even after I told them I do this for a living.

I also found out that GoldenTree sub-contracts connectivity, in this case to XO communications. Basically this is a bandwidth limitation issue. The network starts to degrade around 7pm, gets bad at 8pm and is virtually unuseable until about 11:30pm at which time speeds start to pick up a little.

I asked the front desk manager to request that GoldenTree install a network monitor on their access point to "prove" my assertions. We'll just have to see what happens when I go back there again.

What I'd like to suggest that everybody do is write down the dates, times and hotels where you experience problems, and email them to Marriott Rewards customer service. The local hotels don't seem to be able to do anything about it, so maybe MR can do something if they can pin down common dates/time/issues....

Steve