CONNECTIVITY
"Do you have high-speed Internet access?" I asked the hotel desk clerk at Palo Alto's Crowne Plaza Cabaña.
"As a matter of fact, we're beta-testing a new system," he said, handing me a CD-ROM, a floppy, some photocopied instructions, and a PCMCIA card for my laptop. Yup, it was my lucky day. The hotel's new system is based on the Nokia Wireless LAN, an Ethernet built around the 802.11 protocol. Base stations throughout the grounds allow guests to use the wireless card in their room, in the halls, in the atrium, in the restaurant, in the conference center - even poolside. That freedom is a major upgrade since the last time we visited the Cabaña. (See "Suite Surrender," Wired 7.12, page 112.)
After a complicated install (the instructions didn't match what was on the CD-ROM), I got the software working. The wireless network itself behaved flawlessly, but the rest of the high-speed Internet system needs some tuning up. The hotel's T1 never achieved the rated speed - it felt more like a sluggish DSL connection. Meanwhile, the proxy server that managed the billing had a bad habit of logging me out, sometimes every 30 minutes.
For hotels thinking about offering high-speed access, wireless is an attractive option. On the downside, the hotel requires a $100 deposit for the card and offers no service for Macs. Finally, there's the distraction factor: When everybody at the next conference has high-speed wireless Internet access, who will pay attention to the speakers?
Crowne Plaza Cabaña wireless Internet access: free during beta. Crowne Plaza Cabaña Palo Alto: +1 (650) 857 0787, www.basshotels.com/crowneplaza.
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