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Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Narrowband

You would expect a worldwide brand such as Hilton to provide broadband internet access in all their room as a bare minimum. You would be wrong to make such an assumption. Even though in their literature it clearly states that you can find a broadband cable in the bedside desk drawer on in the wardrobe. I looked around but even with a cable, I could not see a socket it for it anywhere. My television came with a small remote keyboard but it did not seem to work (even though it had batteries inside). I really needed to check my work e-mail and also have a little web time to give in to my cravings. To begin with I connected up my work N73 and used good old fashioned dial up. I remember the number for our ISP at work and entered it in. It connected! Fantastic! However, it was only at 9.6KBps! Painfully slow and not ideal for web surfing, although I did sign into MSN for a few minutes. VPN connected but I was not able to connect the exchange server. OWA was a little better but it took forever to load up all the images for all the menu buttons. I opted to disconnect. There must be a beter way. There was. I loaded up the Nokia software and clicked on the Connect To The Internet button. A wizard took me through a process of selecting my mobile network. Once I clicked on Connect, I was instantly zapped onto the 3G network and had a transfer rate of 460.8KBps! This was great, I was finally able to check my work e-mail, log into Facebook and give the obligatory status update and also check a few other personal e-mail accounts.

In this modern world we live in, there has grown a certain expectation. When we book into a hotel, we expect certain things. A broadband internet connection (wireless or otherwise) is a neccessity, just like warm running water.

2 Comments:

  • I think hotels do provide broadband but its at a cost per hour...most hotels are doing that...and some are even switching to wireless broadband...all you need is your room number and your approval to be charged....

    By Anonymous UTP, at 11:58 AM  

  • Yes I agree with that but Hilton specified on their literature that there was broadband in all rooms and I would find a network cable in my cupboard. I did not and there was no visible socket on the wall.

    By Blogger Andrew, at 8:20 PM  

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