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so if you've ever stayed in a nice hotel you know that it can be a real treat

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plush bedding those fancy little soaps in the bathroom and the $7 sodas in the

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mini bar well anyway all those things can go a long way towards making you

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feel like a real VIP until that is you

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connect to the guest Wi-Fi and it's so slow that it makes your fancy laptop

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feel like something right out of 1995 but why is Hotel Wi-Fi often barely

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functional even at high end Resorts let's start with the obvious volume

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unlike at home where you might only have a few people connected to your network

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at once hotels have to handle hundreds or even thousands of connected devices

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but come on John it's not like these hotels don't plan to fill all the rooms

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with guests so surely they can account for this right well you're right they

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could but part of the problem is due to the business model of hotels which tries

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to draw people in with visually appealing rooms common areas hot tubs

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Continental breakfasts you name it this means if optimized Network

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infrastructure doesn't look flashy in the broch shore it can often get pushed

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to the bottom of their list of priorities so because of this their

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setups can end up seriously flawed in a number of ways for starters when's the

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last time you saw any routers or access points just hanging around the resort

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hotels often cram their equipment into closets maintenance areas and even

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ceilings so things don't look too messy but trying to hide hied behind a bunch

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of obstacles can reduce signal strength and therefore range and speed and many

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hotels also use older equipment that they're in no hurry to replace for

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example hotels often sign contracts with outside companies to provide equipment

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and services for a certain length of time sometimes years so if a hotel has a

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bunch of routers and access points deployed that only support older

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standards replacing them could be very costly depending on what the contract

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says and it isn't like new equipment is cheap to begin with with and if your

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hotel is using older equipment chances are it's only offering a connection on

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the congested 2.4 GHz band which is

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compatible with almost all Wi-Fi devices but is more susceptible to interference

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than the newer 5 GHz band when lots of devices are in close proximity which

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would happen at a hotel the hotel's Network might also be using 802.11n

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routers that don't have as much throughput as newer standards like

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Wireless AC so when you combine all this with the fact that the hotels highspeed

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internet connection is being split across hundreds or even thousands of

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guests it can result in serious bottlenecks but hold on a minute

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wouldn't it make more sense for the hotels to just spend money on better

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hardware and attract visitors with fast Wi-Fi well some hotels are indeed doing

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this but many others are still for some reason holding on to the idea that

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shoddy Wi-Fi will get customers to give up watching movies and other um stuff on

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on their laptops or tablets and instead spring for hotel provided pay-per-view

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and although it's pretty easy to see that hotels will probably have to give

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up on this at some point what can you do in the meantime if you're stuck in a

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place with slow Wi-Fi well a good investment to make if you're a frequent

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traveler is a small wireless router that you can take with you you see many hotel

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rooms also offered wired internet access often over that Ethernet port that you

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find hiding next to the lamp plug a router into it in AP mode and Bam you

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have your very own Wi-Fi network and since you likely won't need to Signal

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outside of your room an inexpensive short range solution will probably do

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especially if you use the less crowded 5 GHz band that we were talking about

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before and if you're really pressed for space in your tiny travel bag there are

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even travel-sized routers that are little more than just a single Ethernet

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port plus an antenna another option is to Simply avoid staying at hotels with

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poor Wi-Fi in the first place there are websites that have popped up

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specifically to Source estimated speeds of hotels in many different cities so if

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you're going to need a reliable internet connection on your next trip keep these

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listings in mind just make sure you also look at the rest of the reviews you

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don't want to rush to book a hotel with fast Wi-Fi for Netflix only to feel

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something unexpected biting at your legs when you try to chill and speaking of

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trying to chill are you finding yourself never having any time to chill because

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you're always racing against the clock as a freelancer well that's challenging

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but with the the growth of the internet there's never been more opportunities

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for the self-employed so to meet this need check out freshbooks Cloud

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guessing games no matter whether you run a landscaping business a production

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company maybe a website where you talk about hotel Wi-Fi speeds whatever you're

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doing freshbooks can handle it freshbooks is also offering a 30-day

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unrestricted free trial to our viewers to claim it just go to freshbooks.com

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tewi and enter techwick in the how you heab Us section all right guys thanks

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for watching this episode the fast as possible like it if you like it dislike

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it if you didn't leave a comment with your ideas for future videos check out

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our other channels check out Channel Super Fun maybe we'll do something super

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fun at some point with little hotel so

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maybe we'll buy some things from a mini bar that'll be super fun and super

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expensive um but yeah anyway don't forget to subscribe and we will see you

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next time