Mike over at Techdirt reported earlier that if you’re going to charge for wifi, you probably should make sure it works. And for god’s sake, make it free. I’ve had a nightmare experience again yesterday in my hotel trying to hook up to the wireless. The hotel’s wireless service was offered by T-Mobile and it took me about 45 minutes to get register, pay (10£ for a day!) and realize I got on it but connection was so slow even Messenger wouldn’t work. It was like I was back on dial-up (but worse). Going back to the reception this morning I complained about it and the answer they gave me was “yes we know we had some issues, that’s why we’re having some techies come in today”. Like I care, I’m leaving, just give me back the money. “We can’t do that sir since it’s a third party service”. Oh my god!
Wireless nightmare
'Cross The Breeze 
I feel with you, Kris. Wherever you go, they always happen to have “some little problems” with their seriously overpriced services. Not to mention the lack of security on these networks once you finally establish a connection.
I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, hoping for the quick fall of (3G) data transfer costs in Belgium. In Thailand last year, I paid less than €0,005 (that’s less than half a euroCENT) per minute for web access! And that was on a white sand island beach, not in a 5-star central-London hotel! ;)
Couldn’t agree more. Wifi in hotels is always overpriced and never seems to work. Lately I’ve seen a few airports (Vienna to name one) where wifi was offered for free.