Convention centers and convention center hotels should offer free internet access. There's no excuse not to do so.
And no, Louisville Convention Center, it does not cost $100/day to provide access in your exhibit hall. Hell will freeze over before I or any sane person would pay anything like that. Frankly, hotel-near-the-Louisville-Convention-Center, $12.95 is too much to spend per day. Charge a dollar a day if it makes you feel better.
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I forget where I saw it but a year or two ago there was an article about why the more expensive the hotel, the more likely it was likely to charge for internet access. It had to do with the clientele, low end hotels offered free access to draw customers. Larger, more hoity-toity hotels charged above market value prices because their clientele was on expense accounts and expected to be gouged and didn't care because it wasn't coming out of their pocket. It is the same thinking that leads to $5 dollar sodas and $4 packs of peanuts in the minibar.
Amen!
Some of those hotels were early providers and got there by signing up with outside companies to provide connections, with the hotel just getting a cut of the proceeds. No surprise, the mechanics of restricting access, billing, etc. are a big part of the cost.
Now, the hotels are looking at (a) getting out of their old contracts, and (b) spending money to install their own connections in order to (c) reduce their incremental income.
Put that business plan together.
I will note, though, that one of the carrots that the IEEE uses to encourage attendees to stay at conference hotels is to negotiate access into the conference attendee room rate.
Yes Josh,
The internet at the netroots was indeed teh suck.