WiFi access points should be rated

I’m in a hotel — the Radisson at Fisherman’s Wharf — in San Francisco at the moment. On the web, when I booked it, it said ‘complimentary WiFi’.

The internet is, indeed, complimentary. It’s a good signal too.

But it’s shit-slow. Ultra shit slow. 10k/second throughput. I get a better signal from my Vodafone USB mobile broadband modem, but I am trying not to use it because there’s a hefty bill, I’m sure, waiting for me.

I’m living in the now generation. That is, I don’t bother downloading any email. I have it all stored on Google Apps. It doesn’t matter what computer I use to access it.

I do need to have a fairly decent internet connection in order for Google Mail to be usable though. I’ve used Google Mail on a bluetooth GPRS connection before and it is slow but usable. On this WiFi connection it’s appalling.

I thought of phoning the ‘StayOnline’ (“high speed internet access”?) support line to complain. What’s the point though?

I’m getting to the point that with my business, I need to have ultra fast internet. Not hamster-speed.

Whaddya do? When you’re on the road? I can’t be arsing about with the hotel internet connection lottery.

In the Las Vegas Planet Hollywood hotel, where I stayed for CTIA, I was getting between 1 and 2 megabytes per second download speed.

Fooking annoying.

Just like the hotel’s star rating, it’s internet connection should be rated too.