AOL free. A question.

[Electrode]

I don't understand why no one has mentioned the obvious one: set up a modem and dial in from the hotel.

Details:
1. Hook up a modem to your comp at home, the one with the cable modem.
2. Set it up to allow dial-in connections.
3. Share the cable internet connection with the modem.
4. Call your home number with the laptop in the hotel and you're all set.

 

[killmeplease]

<< I don't understand why no one has mentioned the obvious one: set up a modem and dial in from the hotel.

Details:
1. Hook up a modem to your comp at home, the one with the cable modem.
2. Set it up to allow dial-in connections.
3. Share the cable internet connection with the modem.
4. Call your home number with the laptop in the hotel and you're all set. >>



Local phone charges are brutal enough from a hotel. Even if you use a phone card from the room, you pay the time.

Why don't hotels run CAT5 to the room desks and charge a flat fee for access to their WAN? It could surely be made secure enough and they could be making money for bandwidth they aren't normally using?

 

[cavingjan]

MArriots and a few others that I have stayed in have been running cat5 to all of the rooms and charge for the service. The cheapest I saw was a Sheraton in Kansas City and they wanted $10 a day. No offense to them but that's too much. I'd be happier if they could lump it in with the hotel charge and my company wouldn't have any problems paying but as an extra fee, the company would pay for the outrageous local phone calls before that.

One hotel (can't remember which one) had their printers and I believe a fax system in their "business room" hooked up so we could print from the room for a small fee.

 

[Supahfreak]

In Hawaii the Hilton Hawaiian Village has a wireless internet setup thats pretty cool. Dunno how much it costs but I still think its cool.

FreAk

 

[LuckyTaxi]

<< netzero works good. >>

 

[killmeplease]

<< MArriots and a few others that I have stayed in have been running cat5 to all of the rooms and charge for the service. The cheapest I saw was a Sheraton in Kansas City and they wanted $10 a day. No offense to them but that's too much. I'd be happier if they could lump it in with the hotel charge and my company wouldn't have any problems paying but as an extra fee, the company would pay for the outrageous local phone calls before that.

One hotel (can't remember which one) had their printers and I believe a fax system in their "business room" hooked up so we could print from the room for a small fee. >>



Cool deal with the printing and faxing. $10 per night for the WAN access is a bit steep. The price is probably why they won't tag it on the room. They want to advertise the rate. Let's face it, competition is tough (especially in this climate) and a few bucks could lose a larger company's business in a large city.

But I'm glad we are seeing businesses looking forward enough to spend the pennies to wire the place.

I checked the hotel's web site and they state "internet accessable". I called and this means they have an extra phone port. THAT is what they call access?! Probably some outlet at a base of the lamp.

Hotels could even set up a wireless setup and easily retrofit.

I'm starting to detect a niche here. I could sell this to hotels or do like the movie deals. Set it up with my equipment, make them use my service, meter it by the minute and make a good buck while supplying something usefull to the business traveler! Just think. If it were wireless, you could pipe it to the rest of the hotel. You could make a whole host of services available to the guests via station or PDA throughout the hotel.

People could buy hotel services from the pool, book tomorrow's room at another (same chain) hotel, order room service to the game room, find a map of the hotel and view local advertising of local businesses and attractions. You could order a taxi from your bar stool!

I'm getting a bit psyched! I'm calling some people. I'm serious.

What do you think?

 

[darkjester]

You can also call Earthlink and ask them for a free trial, and they'll give it to you. When I signed up, I got the first three months for $1 each via a sign-up on the web. So if nothing else, you could go with that. $1 and you have to install NOTHING.

And who knows, you might like their service and stick with them. The problem is that after the dollar-months, it goes up to $21.95 a month.

Give 'em a call and see what they have to say.

Good luck! Have a good trip!

 

[onegauss]

Instead of getting a second phone line and paying for dial-up access, you could just get a cable modem or DSL connection.

 

[cavingjan]

The catc hwith the wireless deal is that people would need to have a compatable card to use it. Most business travelers already have and carry a nic whether its a pcmcia or built into the laptop itself. I don't know many companies that have wireless network to such a degree. And I'm not sure you would want to go into the segment of supplying cards (and consequently tech support).
The current setup in hotels is not overly user friendly unless they have their network configured to use DHCP or know to change it to that. The three sets of directions I read at the hotels were all:
1. plug network cable into laptop
2. turn on laptop
3. open internet explorer and it will come up with our setup screen.
4. fill in required information (room number, name, etc)
5. surf the internet until noon tomorrow

no directions at all explaining how to reconfigure your network card from a static address to a dynamic one.
These setups are very, very crude and is definitely in its infancy.

 

[cavemanmoron]

i am using netzero,And juno,free both i like Juno better,more work to set it up,but then you have 2 Free deals
!!

 

[Jarwa]

Dixiesys has $8.99 a month dial up deal going on right now. I know it's not free, but it's not that expensive for two weeks of internet. The set up is easy. Just check his website for local numbers in your ares. Gary/owner is a nice dude. I just signed up the other day. He had everything set up in less than an hour after I placed the order! Just thought I would mention that deal.