By Gemma Simpson, 30 October 2006 16:05
NEWS
London has been named the most expensive city in Europe for wi-fi internet access in business-traveller class hotels, according to the latest research.
The average charge across Europe for using wi-fi in a hotel came in at €21 (£14.17) per day but London hotels are charging guests an average of €29 (£19.70) for access for 24 hours.
If your hotel is too expensive why not check out wi-fi access in one of London's many pubs.
Check out silicon.com's guide to the best London wi-fi-enabled boozers here.
Luke Mellors, former CIO of The Dorchester Hotel, told silicon.com much of this may be down to the exchange rate, though he did admit "wi-fi is overpriced".
However, he added: "Presently consumers believe that anything other than free is overpriced and this needs to be addressed as much as the hotels overcharging.
"Users of the service must be prepared to pay for the service in order to ensure development of infrastructure and technology and security for it."
The second most expensive city, according to the research from Webaroo, is Munich, with hotels charging €25.32 per day for wi-fi net access, with Paris coming in third at €21.20 per day.
Comments
There are 26 comments. Join the discussion
1. Jaime M-G
Indeed it should be free - large business traveller hotels have the IT infrastructure already in place and if you are poistioning yourself as a business traveller's hotel, then not providing free broadband access is a joke in today's tech world. You don't charge for breakfast, or carpets or flowers in the lobby do you? yet these are essetnial ingredients ofor a business traveller? What is the real marginal cost of someone loging on to use a wifi connection?
2. anonymous
Wi-Fi should be considered as a general overhead by Hotels and be included in the room rate and no be additional too it. Thus it appears to be free to use.
As consumers we pay for it whatever, but split accross every room, then the cost per day per person falls to a point that it be come negligable. Charged on a usage basis Wi-Fi will always be extortionate as few will use it and have to bear the costs of the Hotel running the service.
3. anonymous
Free is the new economy. Luke Mellors needs to understand the idea of complimentary and how free can be used to leverage sales. It is understood that the costs of developments need to be borne in mind but not to the extent that charges should be made. Are hotels going to start charging for complimentary shampoo and hair products?
4. Charles Smith
In Moscow last month staying in a Marriott hotel and it was $30 for 24hrs WiFi. However as a consequence I didn't use the hotel phones and cut right down on the use of mobile usage via Skype. Overall I saved a lot of money on call charges.
So London is no more expensive.
5. Peter Cochrane
Hotel soap, shampoo and towels cost around £6 to provide. WiFi costs (not price) £1. So go down to reception and demand a free service. Use the words - this is the last time I stay here! I do this and mostly get free service.
Check out The City Inn Westminster and The Radisson all have free WiFi.
Vote with your feet and your ££££s
6. anonymous
Most US hotels offer free Wifi/DSL now and more and more US airports are doing the same. If you need occasionaly acess then you are better off with something like Vodafone Connect. (Ed note. In our considerable experience of travelling around the US we've found very few hotels - certainly those in the large chains - who offer free wi-fi - if you've ay pointers please share.)
I select UK hotels based on Internet access not price now.
7. Roger Huffadine
The plague of surcharging for telephones in hotel rooms spread around the World like an epidemic during the mid 1990s and the Hotels eventually lost out because everyone used their mobile phones. The same will happen with WiFi - either the mobile companies like T-mobile will make it more economical to use a mobile or 'outside' WiFi provision will invade the hotel space and the hotel trade will be left with their 'infrastructure' - it will serve the greedy grabbing shysters right too :)
8. Mark Hudson
Some hotels do have it right. The 5 star Peninsula hotel in Bangkok is one of the best hotels in the world, and so it is not the cheapest. However accessing the net in your room is free.
9. anonymous
Broadband access should always be 'free' - although we know it will end up being embedded in the room rate, but just like hot water and lighting it's an essential element of the room for the business traveller. I won't stay in a hotel which doesn't offer broadband (whether DSL or WiFi). My business has many US clients coming to Europe and they always complain about rip-off broadband access charges in European hotels.
10. anonymous
1. It does not appear to be a London thing but a UK thing. Charges at particular hotel chains appear to be the same whther you are in London, Birmingham, Manchester....
2. If anything - it is a business model thing. Most major hotel groups appear to have done an outsourcing deal to specific IT providers. This will include wired and wireless provision to all parts of the hotel. If you think wireless access at £18 a day is a rip-off - just try and use it in a conference room - suddenly the minimum charge for a single connection jumps to £250 a day for the 'technical support'.
3. One answer is to go and stay at a City Inn - where there is free internet connection in every bedroom!
11. D Wilson
I've travelled on business throughout Asia-Pac, US and UK. It's very rare to find any hotel that doesn't charge for Internet access.
The funny thing is that all hotel charge around 20-something for 24-hour access, be it US dollars, Euro's, Australian, Pounds, Singapore dollars etc. Why is that?
12. Simon M
What a rip!
Though not as bad as the Hyatt Regency in Chicago when a large conference is being held there. I was there the other week for an American Mortgage Bankers Association conference and they wanted $300 for 24 hours!
13. David Morris
I was in the US a few weeks ago - a Marriot Courtyard in North Carolina - nothing particularly special. Free WiFi, towels, soap and shampoo in all rooms :-)
In Paris and Dusseldorf a couple of weeks ago, pay-for WiFi.
It's not expensive in the overall scheme of things to provide WiFi and let's face it, most of these places make their living out of business travellers.
It would be a start if there was a reasonably located free hotspot even if access wasn't available in all the rooms. The bar sounds like a good starting point.
14. marvin willson
What really gets up my goat is broadband is a FIXED COST! therefore it should be free or extremly cheap. i stayed at the marriot in uk recently and they charge £3.00 for 15 mins! £12 per hour? That equal to the hourly pay of nearly 3 coffee shop staff!!!
When i travel to NYC on business i always stay at the hotel metro. it's reasonably priced, very central (1 block from empire state) and it has free breakfast and... FREE BROADBAND.
15. Simon Curry
When planning conferences I only recommend hotels with either free Internet access in the rooms or good 3G coverage. I look afer the wireless network at an academic conference venue and at the outset we opted for free access, hindsight has proved it was the right decesion, clients comment how pleased they are to find free access - the only complaint - we still have a few corners of the site where coverage is poor and if there is a fault they are quick to tell us.
16. Dr DL James
I recently spent 3 weeks driving through America. Hotel prices varied between $50 and $170. Every single one included free WiFi or DSL connection. So I cannot see why UK hotels, which cost more, either don't have WiFi or if they do have to charge for it.
17. Trevor B. Lee
Beware hotels in Europe partnering with SwissCom to provide wi-fi and/or standard access. Charges are Eu21 per HOUR. Now that is a rip-off.
18. Trevor Coates
I agree it should be an inclusive service in hotels. When I recently travelled to Scadanavia, I found that most Hotels included it within their room charge and were using it to sell the room space. Equally the odd hotel that did charge for it were only asking around the £5/day. The provision would be better by specialist companies to who the user could subcribe and then be hotel change agnositic. Mobile phones used as modem with 3G is cheaper than the London charges.
19. Gordon Insley
As for charging for Wi-fi in hotels then the UK should take a lead from the US. They tried charging.... and failed. Their customers reacted (as they do in America) complained and boycotted hotel groups that charged for the service. And guess what ..... all of a sudden it's now free and badged as an added value 'customer service'.
Considering a B/band connection is fixed cost and peanuts cost in the big sheme of things hotewise, then why not make it free on the basis of an enhanced customer service.
After all it was already there in the first place for the hotels own business use so why try take advantage and rip people off for a few extra measly bucks!
Wake up you UK / Euro hoteliers !!......
20. thomas Lee
Far too many hotels are using WiFi as an excuse to raise profits.
The Thistle in Bloomsbury charges £14.95 for 24 hours for example.
21. anonymous
WiFi is too expensive and on a number of times I used dial-up again (to an 0800 number). It is a funny thing that most of these hotels don't charge for dialling an 0800 or just 50p to a pound.
WiFi is often outsourced to a third party that has $$$ in their eyes. Performance of WiFi is often not any better than dial up and IP-SEC often only works when the client is forced to a different port or set to UDP.
22. MikeW
Time for a 'hotel broadband' comparison website, methinks - or is there one already ?
23. Ruth McCullough
Maybe Silicon could host a blacklist & a whitelist of hotels/hotel chains worldwide that we could all contribute to? Or even a single list showing wi-fi fees (or not). I have no doubt that prices for wi-fi would rapidly be reduced or disappear altogether as hotel management realise they are losing custom.
24. anonymous
And I thought the Premier Lodge WiFi cost at Manchester was a rip-off at £5 per hour. The catch was that the hour started the moment you registered, so 5 minutes to check your email still cost £5 as the rest would be wasted! I didn't bother and the next time I will look for a hotel that does not charge for WiFi access.
25. anonymous
It's not a London thing it is a Europe thing, the worst I have seen is Amsterdam where you got "Dial-Up" speed at €20 per hour, but anywhere that uses Swisscom you get very poor performance at very high prices. The same is happening with WiFi as with phones in that any one who travels will end up using G3 to avoid the big bills in Hotels, @£45 pcm unlimited the you only need to spend two nights in a hotel to get your costs back and whilst G3 is slower than a good WiFi networks very few hotels have good WiFi networks, especially the ones using managed services from household name telecom companies. The differnce is that most US hotels have "Rolled their own" solution
26. Chris Goodman
Other than the cost of the initial physical set up, the running cost of a WiFi network are small and should be a no charge service provided with room rental. Far better, of course, would be for a hard wired data link to be installed in all rooms when renovating.