Why Is Hotel Wi-Fi So Slow?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,123 words · ~5 min read
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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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