so if you've ever stayed in a nice hotel you know that it can be a real treat
plush bedding those fancy little soaps in the bathroom and the $7 sodas in the
mini bar well anyway all those things can go a long way towards making you
feel like a real VIP until that is you
connect to the guest Wi-Fi and it's so slow that it makes your fancy laptop
feel like something right out of 1995 but why is Hotel Wi-Fi often barely
functional even at high end Resorts let's start with the obvious volume
unlike at home where you might only have a few people connected to your network
at once hotels have to handle hundreds or even thousands of connected devices
but come on John it's not like these hotels don't plan to fill all the rooms
with guests so surely they can account for this right well you're right they
could but part of the problem is due to the business model of hotels which tries
to draw people in with visually appealing rooms common areas hot tubs
Continental breakfasts you name it this means if optimized Network
infrastructure doesn't look flashy in the broch shore it can often get pushed
to the bottom of their list of priorities so because of this their
setups can end up seriously flawed in a number of ways for starters when's the
last time you saw any routers or access points just hanging around the resort
hotels often cram their equipment into closets maintenance areas and even
ceilings so things don't look too messy but trying to hide hied behind a bunch
of obstacles can reduce signal strength and therefore range and speed and many
hotels also use older equipment that they're in no hurry to replace for
example hotels often sign contracts with outside companies to provide equipment
and services for a certain length of time sometimes years so if a hotel has a
bunch of routers and access points deployed that only support older
standards replacing them could be very costly depending on what the contract
says and it isn't like new equipment is cheap to begin with with and if your
hotel is using older equipment chances are it's only offering a connection on
the congested 2.4 GHz band which is
compatible with almost all Wi-Fi devices but is more susceptible to interference
than the newer 5 GHz band when lots of devices are in close proximity which
would happen at a hotel the hotel's Network might also be using 802.11n
routers that don't have as much throughput as newer standards like
Wireless AC so when you combine all this with the fact that the hotels highspeed
internet connection is being split across hundreds or even thousands of
guests it can result in serious bottlenecks but hold on a minute
wouldn't it make more sense for the hotels to just spend money on better
hardware and attract visitors with fast Wi-Fi well some hotels are indeed doing
this but many others are still for some reason holding on to the idea that
shoddy Wi-Fi will get customers to give up watching movies and other um stuff on
on their laptops or tablets and instead spring for hotel provided pay-per-view
and although it's pretty easy to see that hotels will probably have to give
up on this at some point what can you do in the meantime if you're stuck in a
place with slow Wi-Fi well a good investment to make if you're a frequent
traveler is a small wireless router that you can take with you you see many hotel
rooms also offered wired internet access often over that Ethernet port that you
find hiding next to the lamp plug a router into it in AP mode and Bam you
have your very own Wi-Fi network and since you likely won't need to Signal
outside of your room an inexpensive short range solution will probably do
especially if you use the less crowded 5 GHz band that we were talking about
before and if you're really pressed for space in your tiny travel bag there are
even travel-sized routers that are little more than just a single Ethernet
port plus an antenna another option is to Simply avoid staying at hotels with
poor Wi-Fi in the first place there are websites that have popped up
specifically to Source estimated speeds of hotels in many different cities so if
you're going to need a reliable internet connection on your next trip keep these
listings in mind just make sure you also look at the rest of the reviews you
don't want to rush to book a hotel with fast Wi-Fi for Netflix only to feel
something unexpected biting at your legs when you try to chill and speaking of
trying to chill are you finding yourself never having any time to chill because
you're always racing against the clock as a freelancer well that's challenging
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tewi and enter techwick in the how you heab Us section all right guys thanks
for watching this episode the fast as possible like it if you like it dislike
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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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next time