This seems like a rather nonsensical reason devised by hotels that charge for wifi. In fact, the quotes they give are actually from companies that do paid hotel wifi. The argument is very similar to arguments about pricing, monopoly-protection and net non-neutrality regulations for ISPs: that somehow, high prices and abusive regulations are necessary to provide decent bandwidth.
It would be very interesting to see an analysis of internet connection quality at hotels with paid vs. free wifi. In my anecdotal experience, the paid wifi has often been worse. To be fair, paid wifi seems most often to be present at hotels hosting conferences, and the conferences do bring quite a few users... but if we listen to this argument, isn't that the situation that we are paying to prevent?
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This seems like a rather nonsensical reason devised by hotels that charge for wifi. In fact, the quotes they give are actually from companies that do paid hotel wifi. The argument is very similar to arguments about pricing, monopoly-protection and net non-neutrality regulations for ISPs: that somehow, high prices and abusive regulations are necessary to provide decent bandwidth.
It would be very interesting to see an analysis of internet connection quality at hotels with paid vs. free wifi. In my anecdotal experience, the paid wifi has often been worse. To be fair, paid wifi seems most often to be present at hotels hosting conferences, and the conferences do bring quite a few users... but if we listen to this argument, isn't that the situation that we are paying to prevent?