I was in Dallas the past few days to see my father, recovering from a knee replacement. My hotel room had an ethernet jack on the desk with instructions to browse to a 10.X.X.X intranet address to get access. They wanted $10/day, and I clicked through to have it charged to my room.
When I checked out tuesday morning, the clerk asked why I didn’t use the free WiFi. Because they didn’t tell me, and the info in the room lead me to believe the hotel only offered a for-pay ethernet connection.
Next time I travel, I’ll look for an open hotel-provided network first.
Related: I sing the praises of the free WiFi at the Madison Concourse Hotel. Laura Quilter points out that much of the cost of hotel and coffee house WiFI is in the administration of limiting access to paying customers.
