Comments on: Business travelers outraged by Swisscom WiFi ripoff at hotels

By: David

David — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:51:46 +0000

Were a UK WiFi Provider and are actively pushing companies to provide free wifi – and if they insist on charging for it are recommending circa £3 per day, £10 per week, We don;t even allow them to offer per hour WiFi as it just gets peoples backs up.

By: James Meek

James Meek — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:06:10 +0000

I don’t think its quite fair to dump this soley on the hotel/chain, Here in the UK if you go anywhere that does charge for WiFi access, the pricing is always high, e.g. £5 for an hour (some coffee shops) problem is people pay it, rather than refusing to, if no one used an expensive access point and they all complained to the retailer about it and stated that as their reason for not doing so and for going elsewhere in future the situation would change because they they cant afford to lose a significant amount of business. by not offering what rivals do.

Not even Hilton could survive if significant numbers of business travellers started using differect chains becuase of the Wifi costs.

By: Esme Vos

Esme Vos — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:16:09 +0000

New boutique hotels, such as citizenM and Aloft (part of the Starwood Group that runs the W Hotels), are offering free WiFi. These hotels have stylish contemporary design with lots of amenities for people who travel with laptops, iPhones, iPads, iPods.

I just wrote a review of the Aloft Brussels Schuman, very closet to the EU institutions in Brussels:

http://www.mapplr.com/2010/10/01/aloft-hotel-stylish-boutique-hotel-in-brussels/

This is the place to stay if you are going to Brussels for meetings with EU people.

In Amsterdam (Schiphol Airport) and Glasgow there are citizenM hotels:

http://www.mapplr.com/2010/09/18/citizenm-hotel-glasgow-high-tech-luxury-budget-price/

By: Steve Bachmann

Steve Bachmann — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 09:36:25 +0000

Hilton Munich Park was charging 27€ a day as of sept 2010. Swisscom was provider. I moved hotels over it. Better to stay in one with Tmobile and buy a 30 day pass for 29€.

By: Momo

Momo — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:42:02 +0000

Well im sure to say that Premier Inn in UK uses swisscom and charges 15 Euros for 24 hours or 10 Euros per hour.

By: Esme Vos

Esme Vos — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 18:38:39 +0000

Paul,

You better believe it. Travelers are now compiling lists of hotels that charge for WiFi and are passing around these lists so that those hotels will be avoided. Therefore the hotels where Swisscom charges for WiFi are at a distinct disadvantage. Today when travelers are very careful with their money, hotels can ill afford to piss them off. Charging 30 EUR per day is outrageous, 5 EUR is acceptable.

Of course hotels work in the price of WiFi in the room rate like they do with water, electricity, upkeep, maid service, etc. But hotels do not charge me extra for maids or water. By the way, there are hotels that have very reasonable room rates, beautiful interiors and good service that do NOT charge for WiFi.

Esme

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:22:39 +0000

Hi,

dont believe this, hotels who do not charge up front you can believe they are charging it in your room rate. I have worked in this industry for 8 yrs and there is no hotel who does not charge you in some way for providing this service.

By: Kirt

Kirt — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:55:32 +0000

I experience the same at a hotel in UK.

I am actually updating my lists that I publish of hotels that charge for internet. Do you have a list of these hotels? Especially Holiday Inn Express’!

thanks.

By: Richard Stacy

Richard Stacy — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:38:22 +0000

Have set up #hotelwifishame as a twitter tag – both as a space to document this and also part experiment with BBC World’s Fast Track programme http://bit.ly/tG5Sb