High on high-speed access

Excuse me while I wipe the virtual egg off my face.

I was wrong about business travelers not wanting high-speed Internet access in their hotel rooms, as I claimed in a recent column. More and more road warriors are looking for speedy connections, and they’re willing to pay for the privilege.

This wasn’t always the case. Three years ago, when giddy newspaper headlines proclaimed that hotels were “fired up to get wired up,” it was true that property managers were more or less the only ones excited about broadband. They couldn’t seem to rewire the insides of their rooms fast enough during the go-go days of the Internet revolution.

Now, against considerable odds, their investment is starting to pay off.

Tech travelers such as the ones who read this column are among the most enthusiastic consumers of high-speed Internet connections, according to consultant J. Grant Caplan of Consulting Strategies in Houston. “They do like the technology features of high-speed. They aren’t for everyone, but they sure do save a lot of time when used by people who are comfortable with it,” he says.

It isn’t easy to find statistical evidence to support this surge in consumer interest. But the anecdotal data is abundant.

“I’ve found that in just in the last six months high-speed access has become common enough that my colleagues and I look for it and use it if it’s available,” says Charles Engelke, who is the director of information technology for a Gainesville, Fla., software and consulting firm. “And I definitely have selected a hotel specifically because it does have such connections.”

Brian Hannon, a traveler based in Roslindale, Mass., agrees. “There’s nothing worse than getting cut off every two or three minutes when I’ve got an hour’s worth of emailing and Web hunting to do. Well, perhaps having to set my modem down to 2400 baud to even get a connection is worse,” he notes. Hannon drives an extra 20 minutes each way to reach the only hotel near his client site with high-speed Internet access. He says he’d be happy with a consistent modem connection, but he adds, “it’s awfully hard to find on the road.”

Here’s the kicker: tech travelers are willing to pay more for high-speed access. Lots more. “I would pay $200 per month or more for complete high-speed wireless access [in a hotel],” says reader John Evans. “Do you know how annoying 56 Kbps [connections are] on the road? What a pain in the neck it is to be sitting in an airport waiting area or airport lounge and, barring the concept of working offline, not be able to get or send mail?”

But before we get to the question of how much you should consider shelling out for an in-room broadband connection, let me return to the egg-in-the-face visual I started this column with. Don’t get carried away with the metaphor, now. I’m not soaking wet.

Travelers may now be interested in a fast Internet connection more than they ever have, but they’re not about to throw their money away. Particularly now, when nearly every company is cutting back on corporate travel, hotels ought to be careful about how they price the high-speed connections.

“Why in the world would I pay $13.95 an hour when I can get free access with my 800 number on the plain old phone line?” asks Kim Reome, who works for a Chicago law firm. “The amount of Internet I use in a four-night stay could rack up almost $100 in surcharges. No thank you!”

Indeed, the cost of bandwidth is across the board – from free access at a place like the Business Inn in Ottawa, Canada, to $9.95 for 24 hours of fast fiber at the Embassy Suites in San Luis Obispo, Calif. Connection rates and vary, too: at one property, fast can mean T3; at another, a DSL line that plods along during peak times is what you’ll get for your money.

All of which brings me back to my original statement for which I’m now paying the price. At the risk of repeating myself, here it is: “Myth #2: There aren’t enough high-speed Internet connections. If you don’t install them, we’ll refuse to stay in your hotel.”

To suggest that business travelers as a whole would refuse to stay at a given hotel simply because it didn’t offer a fast Internet connection is still largely true. OK, maybe the more tech-savvy hotel guests (the ones who are working on a long project at, say, an extended stay property) are going to prefer a place with an RJ-45 jack in the wall. But I believe that common sense still prevails when a traveler decides which hotel to check into – and that an Internet connection will only be a single factor in selecting a hotel.

I was wrong to write that high-speed connections don’t matter to business travelers. They clearly do.

However, I think my point about hotel managers being needlessly obsessed by bandwidth is still valid. I also think that my advice about taking advantage of all the free high-speed connections that still abound remains relevant. Sooner or later, hotels and the connectivity providers who do business with them will try to recoup their investment, and with the way the lodging industry is performing these days, I imagine it will be sooner rather than later.

But there’s really no good reason to get high on high-speed connections – at least not yet.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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