Monday, February 27, 2006

I haven’t experienced this one personally, but I know people who have. Two people check into a hotel room—husband and wife, business colleagues sharing a room, whatever—and each has his or her own laptop. One jacks in, signs up for the $9.95-per-day service, does his work, logs off. Then the second person jacks in and is asked to pay again. Each computer has a different MAC address and the hotel—many of which would charge for each flush of the toilet if they could—takes advantage of that to get double broadband fees for one room.

Dan Gillmor writes about this and notes that savvy Macintosh users can network their Macs to share a connection. As for me, I carry an Airport Express, the Apple WiFi device that’s about the size of a wallet. I’ve probably provided wireless broadband to a dozen or so people in rooms near mine. It works with a Mac or a Windows machine, given that the WiFi specification is a standard.

Hat tip to Geek News Central.

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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