A prophet is without wifi in his own land

Once again, my terrible law of hotels and internet connectivity is confirmed.  Alan Levine is the hapless empiricist. 
For those new to Alexander's Iron Law, it's tragically simple: the more expensive the hotel, the more expensive and/or lower quality the internet connectivity.

Comments

[Intellagirl]

This is absolutely true. At the Dollar Inn (32$ a night) you get free high speed wireless. At the St. Julien (Boulder CO $185 a night conference rate) there was ethernet only in the rooms and it was slow.
Hotels: Don't advertise free internet if it's slow and only available at a tiny desk in my room. Geesh!
Intellagirl

[Paul W. Swansen]

I'm continually amazed that in this day and age of business travel, that the business hotel/motel chains continue to charge for internet access.

[Tom Haymes]

I thought that was my Iron Law. :-) This is absolutely true. The expensive hotel that the NMC put us up in in San Antonio charged for Internet while at Drury Inn you get it for free.

I guess the market doesn't work at those levels. The cheap hotels/motels are always looking for the latest schtick to lure in customers whereas the more expensive can count on conference rates. Maybe we need to lobby our conference organizers to make this a factor in hotel selection.

In the NMC's defense, the hotel at the national conference in Indianapolis this year was much better. They were on the university's wireless system.

On a final note, I noticed this trend in Europe as well. On a recent tour of Ireland, I noticed that the cheap B&B's often had free wireless while the expensive hotels in the cities tended to charge you for the privilege.

[Bryan Alexander]

Thank you for adding to the grim evidence, Intellagirl.

Paul, one would think it would have turned out differently. Tom's nailed part of the reason why. Although I'm sorry to see the iron law applies on both sides of the Atlantic.

[kosmo]

wifi is giving deppression,cancer and so many other problems .

im always choosing hotels without wifi.

would rather sleep in a tent if theres no normal hotelrooms without wifi.