I have to travel quite extensively not only within country but also abroad. More often than not these travels are related to business purpose. Therefore, most of the time the charges on accessing the Internet from Hotel room can be expensed out. Having said that, sometimes, it really sucks when you have to pay bucks on Internet access irrespective of who actually pays for it.

I encountered various kind of scenarios for being online while in a hotel.

1. In your room you will be free access to net through wired Ethernet connection but you have to pay for WiFi connection. In the era of ultrabook, tablet chromebook etc. there is a good chance that you will not be having an Ethernet port device
2. There may be free WiFi in hotel room but it may be two tired access. The first one is free and declared slow internet and the other one is deemed fast and high priced one. You may land up in a scenario where both sucks. The second option sucks more because you paid big bucks for it
3. You may be having Wifi access only in the lobby or floor area. If you want to access net in your room you have to pay for it. Please look for the tagline “Free High speed Internet access throughout the premises including Hotel rooms” while booking. The position of the words in the tagline may change but if something is missing you may be in trouble
4. This one is the worst case scenario- that you have to pay for everything if you want to be online

So, why do you need a Wifi connection? It is simply because all your devices (tablet, smartphone, gaming device and computer) have become very demanding. They all need net connection 24×7 to provide you with the intended usage.

Now, let us have a look at the following interesting statistics:

1. Hotelchatter says that while most hotels provide free Wi Fi, (according to their 2013 Hotel WiFi report, more than two-thirds of hotels say they provide the free service), but “availability can be limited to the lobby, or its only free for a while before you have to pay, or you get minimal bandwidth.”

1. According to a recent J.D. Power & Associates study, about 55% of all hotel guests access the Internet during their stays — up 20% from 2006. About 87% of that group is using Wi-Fi.

1. According to a recent survey by Hotels.com, which should be an eye opener for every hotelier: interviewing more than 8,600 people across 28 countries, it found that two-thirds picked free wi-fi as the facility they most wished to become standard at all hotels. And just 11 per cent were willing to pay for wi-fi during their stay.

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