Broadband Proliferates in Hotels

The TMCnet news feeds today picked up an announcement from research firm In-Stat, predicting that broadband-enabled hotels worldwide will grow from 14,300 in 2004 to 54,000 in 2009.

The study specifically looks at properties that offer broadband access in guest rooms, not just in business centers and public areas. In-Stat says that hotel broadband service is growing especially in North America. North America represents about two-thirds of broadband-enabled properties. When you look at total worldwide markets, penetration is still quite low. In-Stat says that, worldwide, "broadband will have only penetrated 3.4 percent in 2004, growing to 11.4 percent in 2009."

As I prepared for the road trip my wife and I took last month (September 2005) from Connecticut to South Carolina, I was wondering what to expect in terms of Internet access in hotels along the way. For several years now, I've relied on my Earthlink dialup account to keep me connected while traveling. But after last month's trip, from now on I'm bringing an ethernet cable. Hotel broadband is indeed proliferating.

Most intriguing was the Telkonet BPL (Broadband over Power Lines) access offered at the English Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia. Here's a picture of Telkonet's iBridge unit on the Spassmeister blog. It's a small, easy-to-use device that sits on the desk and is maybe a little smaller than a WiFi router.

I found that Telkonet worked pretty well. The system provides Internet access over the hotel's electrical circuits, so all you really have to do is plug the iBridge into a wall outlet and plug your ethernet cable into the iBridge. I think I might have had to restart my laptop once to give it a chance to shake hands with the iBridge, but after that it worked seamlessly and gave me fast reliable access during my stay.

However, I have to admit that on this trip I was just as happy to stay for four nights at the 1837 Bed & Breakfast in Charleston, South Carolina, where we didn't even have a telephone in the room, not to mention broadband! And my wife was very happy with that, as it left me free to go on walks with her through the beautiful historic district of Charleston, instead of sitting in the room hunched over my laptop.

AB -- 10/12/05