I am happily ensconced this morning at that beautiful Villa Pinciana not far from the Roman steps in Roma, Italy. Besides the beauty of this location and this hotel, one other thing is likely to stand out for American travelers not just at this but virtually all hotels in this country: free wifi. As many of you know, I have long complained about the practice of high-end hotels charging ridiculous fees for wifi while cheaper hotels (and countless coffee shops, restaurants, and other establishments) offer it for free.(Here and here and here) It is an open gouging of business travelers but these hotels which are charging hundreds of a night only to demand that guests pay them for something free on the street. Now there is a small victory against the corporate greed of high-end hotels. Marriott has agreed to pay a $600,000 fine after the Federal Communications Commission found the company blocked consumer Wi-Fi networks last year during an event at a hotel and conference center in Nashville. Of course, nothing changes in Marriott ripping off guests for wifi generally, but they stand to do the electronic version of poisoning wells to force travelers to drink at their well.
It turns out that Marriott was charging exhibitors and others as much as $1,000 per device to access the hotel’s wireless network while blocking their Wi-Fi access. The way Marriott sabotaged its own guests was by using “containment features of a Wi-Fi monitoring system” at the hotel to prevent people from accessing their own personal Wi-Fi networks. The hotel was forced to agree to stop the practice at all of its properties, not just the Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville. I would love to know who busted the hotel. In March 2013, someone sent the FCC a complaint that the hotel was “jamming mobile hot spots so that you can’t use them in the convention space.”
Marriott however agreed to the settlement but still insists that it was acting entirely appropriately: “Marriott has a strong interest in ensuring that when our guests use our Wi-Fi service, they will be protected from rogue wireless hot spots that can cause degraded service, insidious cyber-attacks and identity theft.” Wow, forcing people to pay $1,000 a device was Marriott way of protecting people from unscrupulous actors.
Here is the FCC press release.
What continues to amaze me is that high-end American hotels continue to rip off travelers when most of the market offer free wi-fi as a basic feature for guests. It turns out that Marriott is only “Your home away from home” if you come from an incredibly abusive and usurious family.
Source: CNN
@ Davidm
That is very clever of the hotel. It seems that the technology in China and other parts of the East is at a much higher standard than we are receiving here.
I’m glad that the Marriott got fined. When we stay at the hotels/Casino in Reno some will give you a hotel password when you check in and there is no fee. Others want to charge you a daily fee for access.
DBQ, one thing that makes it attractive for the hotels there is that cell service itself is ridiculously cheap. They have no government tariffs on the service like we do here, so they get cell service for their smart phones for like $12 a month.
When I visited South Korea, I booked a tour guide to take us around. He had a Samsung cell phone in his car that served as a WiFi hotspot. So while we are heading over to the next tour spot, we all had WiFi access right there in the van. And it was really fast 4G service. Koreans are on the forefront of this technology and supply us with great phones, so maybe I should not have been surprised, but I was. It really raised my respect for Koreans.
Customer service 21st century style.
Next month, I am staying at the Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong. I read a review recently of the hotel and learned that they actually provide a smart phone for its guests to use for the length of their stay. It has voice and data access, unlimited free calls to the U.S., and it can be used as a Wifi hotspot. If you lose the phone, they charge you $250. This is kind of new. I hope all hotels start getting a clue about providing this kind of high tech service. Following is a link to the review:
http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2014/10/05/review-hyatt-regency-hong-kong-tsim-sha-tsui/
Absent isn’t the same thing as missing. Just sayin’
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My 1st Amendments rights are as precious as yours Miss Queen.
Has any one else noticed we are missing Annie today?
Darren. Not to bother Prof Turley on his vacation with this idiocy. Can you please restrict the Troll known as Mrs. Spindelli. She is contributing nothing to the dialogue and is purposely trying to disrupt the blog as well as, obviously, trying to provoke another commenter.
Please stop this childish activity.
My hubby is a big tipper! He gives the cleaning girls a tip and those ungrateful girls look at the tip and don’t have a smile on their faces, they actually look insulted! What is wrong with some people? Ask my husband, he will tell you he is very generous!
BTW, Marriot is not on my list of places to stay. š
I thought that Marriot’s weasel worded press release was interesting. They were wrong, but they weren’t wrong. What is interesting is that the more expenisive the hotel the more expensive the wi-fi connection. When I was on my last trip I would only stay in places with free wi-fi.
Too bad you forgot about the Marriot trying to get its guests to leave bigger tips so that they do not have to pay them a living wage. It goes back to their days in DC where they started out in drive up food service and paid their car hops nothing at all. I refuse to stay at their hotels since they are such a lousy corporation. Of course, they are devout Mormons, so this kind of thing does not offend their god.
Marriott is one of the worst of the nickel and dimers for services. they also usually have the most useless pools and weakest selections of cable tv. Their new convention hotel in DC is loaded with cell phone dead zones.
Hmmmm. Mitt Romney rejoined Marriott’s BOD in 2012. Could there possibly be a connection?
I wonder when the Waldorf will get fined.
Not far from the Spanish steps…
Be sure to have a drink at the garden bar at the Hotel de Russie (Via del Babuino just off piazza del Popolo) before dinner some evening – where all the beautiful people (like the Turleys) congregate before sunset!
Cheers!
Happy trails.
The wifi jammers get jammed.
Good.
Too bad they didn’t think about protecting their guests from MARRIOTT.
Good points.
Reblogged this on Reality Check.
Reblogged this on HAPLOGROUP – bit that makes us human..
omg. shut your computer down and go outside!! š