Internet access disappoints still

I've been on the road again for the better part of the last month. Unfortunately, that means I've been at the mercy of the various wired and wireless internet offerings in different places.

The worst service? At the hotel in Orlando. I don't know what the Internet connection was, but it felt like a dial-up connection shared among the thousands of bedrooms. The conference facilities were better, but still limited considering what could have been available.

The best? At the Malmaison hotel in Edinburgh. It was fast and very simply just worked. It's hard to fault something that operates so flawlessly. I even managed to get my Netgear Wifi Skype phone working with the service.

The most surprising? The service offered on the train down to London and up to Edinburgh. The train company that operates the service has recently changed, something we were worried about as my wife uses them daily for the commute into London. So far, though, the service has been good, and they've switched the wireless access to be free throughout the train. It works very well, albeit occasionally very slowly because of the way it switches between mobile/satellite and mobile only communicate. This means that at times the system slows to a crawl as we all share a mobile service, but that's better than nothing at all.

The most frustrating? At the airport. At Gatwick there was no access unless you paid for it, and it was expensive. Close to $10/hour - you can get broadband for little more than twice that for a month's rental. The really annoying part is that you didn't even get limited access to the airport information, like departure times. In Orlando, in the first class lounge it was free, and it worked without any limitations.

I'm happy to accept that internet access costs money, but I wish that companies would either charge a reasonable sum or provide a reasonable subscription model. The former method has limitations because the cost of billing is probably a significant proportion of the total cost and that is probably what contributes to the comparatively high starting cost and lower longer term fees.

The problem is that that $10/hour is a fixed charge, even if you only want to use it for 5 minutes to check your email or quickly view a site. The longer term contracts are better, but they require a long commitment - often 12 months - to get the reasonable rates. Maybe a pay by the minute, or at least a buy by the hour, use by the minute service.