When it’s offered by the Hilton hotel. Their page says “High-speed Internet is offered in all 449 guestrooms at a nominal fee“.
There’s two problems with that assertion. First of all, the “nominal fee” is $9.99. For 24 hours. I’ll concede that the hotels that i go to that charge for internet all seem to agree that 10 dollars is the median price for 24 hours of “high speed internet”, but 41¢ an hour is nowhere near “nominal”.
To put things into perspective, i pay $44.95 a month for 5 megabit internet. Actually, i pay about 10 dollars less with bundled services, but humor me. At 45 dollars a month, assuming a 30 day billing cycle, i pay roughly $1.50 a day. That’s 6¢ an hour. Don’t forget, that’s for 5 megabits (640 kilobytes for you internet types!) You know what your 10 dollars gets you for a day at the luxurious hilton? A little more than HALF a megabit. That’s about 521 kiloBITS (or 65 kiloBYTES). Try watching any YouTube video at this speed. I know i couldn’t.
I did a quick search on the definition of what “high speed” means, which most people use synonymously with the term “broadband”:
“…refers to any kind of Internet connection that is not a standard dial-up connection. Usually faster than 56Kbps and also encompasses broadband and wireless connections.”
When measured against that extremely low bar, the hilton is definitely offering “high speed internet”. However, in the real world that ordinary people live in, it’s offering you YouTube videos that have to buffer every 5 seconds for 15 seconds.
…But then again, YouTube’s speeds suck donkey balls, so comparison is fairly subjective. Google’s probably throttling speeds because they’re trying to force their hand in their bid to end “net nuetrality“…
Oh, and i forgot to add… These idiots don’t have microwaves (anywhere!) and you have to pay extra for a fridge. Room services comes with a 19% service charge and 6% sales tax (strange, considering that the Virgina Department of Taxation says it’s 5%) and (AND!!!) a two dollar delivery charge. WTF? Shouldn’t “delivery” constitute a service?
