Don't feel bad. A few years ago I used dial once every evening for 6 days to update my email and check a few websites. I did not ask what the LD Charges would be. It cost me over $900.00 for that little mistake. (Approx. 2 hours total LD time)
I understand your pain. You really should check into an economy hotel, which probably doesn't exist anywhere but on the outskirts of Vegas. Most economy hotels have free breakfast and some have free wireless.
It's a bit ironic that the more you pay, the less you get.
Great post, Alde. I do tech support for Marriott hotels on the corporate network (not guests on the guest network), and it's interesting to see how things are set up between the hotel and the ISP for the guest network.
I think the Captain not posting while in Vegas due to high prices is evidence of the price system effectively rationing an extremely scarce resource. I'd be willing to bet there's not much unused bandwidth sitting around in Vegas, even with some people choosing not to use any due to the cost.
If you have broadband internet at home, your service provider often has dial-up numbers available as a back-up or extra benefit for when you're traveling.
Go online or call your ISP before you leave and look up the local dial-up number for where you are staying. If your hotel doesn't charge by the minute for local calls, you can free get internet access that way, albeit at dial-up speeds. But you have to be certain it's a local call. Just being in the same area code is no guarantee.
Another way: if you have a PDA phone with unlimited internet access, you can use your phone as a modem with either a cable or Bluetooth. I've never tried this with my Treo, but I know it can be done.
6 comments:
Don't complain, it was -32 celsius (-25 F for you yanks)this morning in Ottawa and the forecast calls for 3-4 days of it.
DH
Don't feel bad. A few years ago I used dial once every evening for 6 days to update my email and check a few websites. I did not ask what the LD Charges would be. It cost me over $900.00 for that little mistake. (Approx. 2 hours total LD time)
Just about any McDonalds in Las Vegas has cheap wifi. Or Starbucks.
The reason the hotels charge so much for it is that they can, and people pay. I wrote about this back in 2006.
I understand your pain. You really should check into an economy hotel, which probably doesn't exist anywhere but on the outskirts of Vegas. Most economy hotels have free breakfast and some have free wireless.
It's a bit ironic that the more you pay, the less you get.
Great post, Alde. I do tech support for Marriott hotels on the corporate network (not guests on the guest network), and it's interesting to see how things are set up between the hotel and the ISP for the guest network.
I think the Captain not posting while in Vegas due to high prices is evidence of the price system effectively rationing an extremely scarce resource. I'd be willing to bet there's not much unused bandwidth sitting around in Vegas, even with some people choosing not to use any due to the cost.
If you have broadband internet at home, your service provider often has dial-up numbers available as a back-up or extra benefit for when you're traveling.
Go online or call your ISP before you leave and look up the local dial-up number for where you are staying. If your hotel doesn't charge by the minute for local calls, you can free get internet access that way, albeit at dial-up speeds. But you have to be certain it's a local call. Just being in the same area code is no guarantee.
Another way: if you have a PDA phone with unlimited internet access, you can use your phone as a modem with either a cable or Bluetooth. I've never tried this with my Treo, but I know it can be done.
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