Anger as Australian Hotels charge up to $35 per day for Internet access

[amaroo]

I've enjoyed no charge internet access with super fast speed that would embarrass most oz businesses.............in the middle of the jungle in laos (luang Prabang).....great spot, well worth a visit.

 

[Simo]

If I'd been invited...... I was stuck at home washing down Coconut crumbed Banana prawns with Tattinger

ALH it was very unorganised.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Numerous Aussie backpacker places have free wifi: the get fewer customer if they don't
Have met one person in Melbourne who paid up for a backpacker place close to his hotel for the "free wifi": cheaper than his hotel wifi charges. He just sat in the backpacker bar/cafe

 

[ALH]

ALH it was very unorganised.

Those are the best parties...

I had free wifi in every room all around Finland and Norway last year and most of Eastern Europe

 

[Pushka]

It's like the extra charge for Amex. Surely an adjustment to the room rate would sort this out . I have often said that if you charge a price and discount it for cash,you get a much more friendly response.

Diners club charge $1.50 for payments using Bpay from a cheque account - no credit card involved! A couple of months ago I was 50c short, by one day late and they charged us $35 fee! We've had the card for 30 years! Needless to say that was the last time we ever used the card.

 

[Hvr]

I would never pay for Internet in an Australian hotel, I would use my dongle instead. Whilst I have free HH internet then I'll enjoy it.

Free or very cheap internet overseas puts Australia to shame. Hopefully the situation will improve when the NBN is connected.

 

[mella2007]

I never pay for it in hotels also. Thankfully for Hilton status I get free Internet and at other hotels around the world that are not Hilton's I normally get lucky with free wifi. If I'm travelling on business to a country area, I always ensure the hotel/motel has free internet or let the client know it must be part of my package.

 

[coyote25]

I also had included / free wifi in the bus from Iceland airport and it was super fast. I was very surprised at the cost and speed.

And I do vote with my money outside of Australia, if there is a similar choices choose the hotel with the inclusions gets the booking. This isn't a whinge only comment but a reflection on the difference between countries and also classes of hotel in Australia.

You'd think the hotels charging the highest room cost could come up with a model that works instead of prices that are extremely expensive when compared the mobile sim packs.

 

[Mrmaxwell]

One reason I hate paying for hotel Internet is lack of speed/performance.

If a hotel would give me similar performance to my home ADSL connection (approx 10Mbps) then I would be happy to pay. Problem is most charge absurd amounts then you login to find the speed almost as slow as dial up and completely useless for any real kind of productive work.

 

[eastwest101]

Kind of reminds me of a comment I saw years ago about outlandish data fees:

"Dude - I just want to check my emails, not buy your ISP!"

 

[Deleted member 29185]

if you go with Telstra, their 10mb Business Grade service with unlimited data is $7931 ex GST

So that's about $2.30/day/room (250 room hotel) with equipment amortised over 12 months. Deduct the hotel internet usage and allow for an acceptable occupancy rate (70%) plus 100% profit, surely only $5/day is justified?

Realistically, one could be forgiven for thinking the wise hotel chain would simply add the pre-profit cost to the room charge ($2/night maybe) and capitalise on the "free" internet banner.

 

[cdchi1]

Realistically, one could be forgiven for thinking the wise hotel chain would simply add the pre-profit cost to the room charge ($2/night maybe) and capitalise on the "free" internet banner.

Good point...who knows, maybe thats what overseas hotels are doing. Claiming free wifi but increasing the cost of their rooms. And that would hit people that don't use the wifi hardest. I know certain online retailers that claim 'free delivery' increase their $AUD price quoted to account for that.

 

[markis10]

So that's about $2.30/day/room (250 room hotel) with equipment amortised over 12 months. Deduct the hotel internet usage and allow for an acceptable occupancy rate (70%) plus 100% profit, surely only $5/day is justified?

Realistically, one could be forgiven for thinking the wise hotel chain would simply add the pre-profit cost to the room charge ($2/night maybe) and capitalise on the "free" internet banner.

More are starting to offer "free" basic Internet which in reality is costed into the rate, usually with a usage limit, while faster services can be purchased or larger data limits. Where the service is provided free, the average data download is 280mb, but hotels often see frequent users downloading 2 gb per stay.

 

[Deleted member 29185]

Where the service is provided free, the average data download is 280mb, but hotels often see frequent users downloading 2 gb per stay.

The Telstra figure you kindly provided was for unlimited data, so why would the hotel care about that?

Moreover, I rarely use the internet in a hotel (much better things to do) and I get complementary Wifi with the Hilton. I'd assume there are many like me who just don't bother, or use it to access emails only. On my recent stays, 8-12 - HSP (no internet usage), 21,22,23,24-12 - HSW (no internet usage), 25,26,27-12 HSP - (internet usage for about 1 hour total + dramas logging on with the Doco crowd). There's 8 recent days in which I used about 1 hour total so for each of those that clock up high usage, I'm sure they're fairly well offset by those who basically don't use it.

 

[markis10]

The Telstra figure you kindly provided was for unlimited data, so why would the hotel care about that?

The breakdown of $6k is the cost to a hotel not using an unlimited plan, if they were to go to the Telstra one it would be around $10k per month.

 

[chrisb]

One of the best ways for this to change is for more companies to insist on Internet access as part of their corporate rate. Eventually it would become benefit for the hotel to just give up charging and include it. Unfortunately companies still don't seem to require it, assume due to the availability of 3G.

I am in a hilton at the moment, thankfully with free Internet but using an annoying login portal. The hotel i was at last week had hotel wide free wifi with no login or portal. It just worked. Damn it was nice.

 

[ajca]

Edit: My costings might be a tad conservative if you go with Telstra, their 10mb Business Grade service with unlimited data is $7931 ex GST, of course you could go with a 100Gb limit for $1700 odd per month but a hotel with 250 rooms that means just over 3 Gb a day before an excess kicks in.

That Telstra price doesn't sound right to me. If hotels are paying $8k/month for 10mbps unlimited then they are seriously overpaying (or they're paying the Telstra price, not the market price )

It has been a long time since I have had anything to do with the ISP business but back in 2008 the rule of thumb was you paid $250/mbps/month for internet transit out of a datacenter. I am sure this has dropped dramatically since then, but even on those prices for $8k / month you could get say 28mbps allowing $1k / month for fibre backhaul to the DC.

These numbers are five years old and off the top of my head. I would have thought these days $8k / month would get you closer to 50 or 100 mbps which should be enough even for a big hotel especially if you rate limit each individual connection to some reasonable speed so people aren't clogging it up by Bittorrenting etc.

 

[markis10]

That Telstra price doesn't sound right to me. If hotels are paying $8k/month for 10mbps unlimited then they are seriously overpaying (or they're paying the Telstra price, not the market price )

It has been a long time since I have had anything to do with the ISP business but back in 2008 the rule of thumb was you paid $250/mbps/month for internet transit out of a datacenter. I am sure this has dropped dramatically since then, but even on those prices for $8k / month you could get say 28mbps allowing $1k / month for fibre backhaul to the DC.

These numbers are five years old and off the top of my head. I would have thought these days $8k / month would get you closer to 50 or 100 mbps which should be enough even for a big hotel especially if you rate limit each individual connection to some reasonable speed so people aren't clogging it up by Bittorrenting etc.

Big difference between bandwidth in a data centre where there is a fibre PUP and having a connection at your premises:

Telstra Business - Broadband Ethernet Plans & Pricing

Putting a fibre PUP into a hotel is not practical in most cases for the cost, so metro Ethernet is the next best thing versus copper with contention, and you will find the market for that is not diverse versus piggy backing of Telstra copper which won't provide the bandwidth a large hotel would need.

 

[ajca]

Big difference between bandwidth in a data centre where there is a fibre PUP and having a connection at your premises:

Telstra Business - Broadband Ethernet Plans & Pricing

Putting a fibre PUP into a hotel is not practical in most cases for the cost, so metro Ethernet is the next best thing versus copper with contention, and you will find the market for that is not diverse versus piggy backing of Telstra copper which won't provide the bandwidth a large hotel would need.

Thanks @markis10. Very interesting. Still seems a bit strange to me though... surely it wouldn't cost that much to get fibre brought into the building of a city hotel (in the big scheme of things)?

I would have thought the fibre install would be $25-$50k up to max of say $100k depending on location. A drop in the ocean of the overall capex of building / refurbing a big hotel. The hotel would surely save more than that over a couple of years by not being beholden to Telstra's overpriced metro ethernet services. Not to mention fibre would give them a lot more flexibility to be able to keep up with ever increasing future bandwidth demand plus be able to provide videoconferencing etc that they could charge decent money for.

Back in 2003 I worked for a ten person company and we had at least one fibre circuit coming into our little warehouse in Richmond. If we could afford it then, surely a $100m Hilton can today!

Not disagreeing at all - I have no doubt that you are right! But I am curious as to the dynamics involved.

 

[Sprucegoose]

I've enjoyed no charge internet access with super fast speed that would embarrass most oz businesses.............in the middle of the jungle in laos (luang Prabang).....great spot, well worth a visit.

I am not surprised to hear this. Meanwhile back in Oz............