Slow and Unreliable
It’s interesting that hotel Internet is still slow. It’s slow compared to what I have setup at home, but not so slow that I can’t get things done or watch videos or even have calls.
Ping is fast. However, bandwidth is low. It also occasionally kicks out devices from the Internet.
About 11 years ago, I was blown away by one hotel’s Internet speed. It was a Westin in Austin and I was getting 40 Mbps. This was by far the fastest speed I had seen, even in residentially offerings.
Now, fiber is the becoming common in residential with 1 Gbps (practically, 500 Mbps) the norm in many countries. However, in this hotel, a North American brand in a large city, I get 12 Mbps and the requirement to disconnect / reconnect to WiFi several times a day.
That said, building-wide WiFi is hard. Many more devices today are connected and there are many new threats. Hopefully, as WiFi6 takes over in commercial settings, we’ll see better reliability and speed. Or, we’ll just tether to our own devices.
