The tablet boom is catching up with us.
We have more users consuming wifi bandwidth now more than ever, and many travelers are finding their hotel WiFi has NO VACANCY.
There has been such a huge spike in usage, most hotels haven’t had the time or money to keep up with the demand.
Is free wifi dead?
Here are some of the numbers:
- 10 to 15 percent of hotels in the United States now offer at least some kind of Wi-Fi service with fees for higher usage.
- AT&T says that connection times for its hotel Internet service had more than doubled from the second quarter of this year to the third quarter.
- Studies conducted for iBAHN indicate that while free Internet service remains a big factor in choosing a hotel, nearly two-thirds of business travelers say they have encountered slow Internet downloading in the last 12 months.
- Over two-thirds said they would “not return to a hotel where they had a poor technology experience.”
- The bits used for video streaming and downloading increased thirtyfold in one year.
Amazing, right?
It isn’t just all the smartphones, tablets and laptops that are sucking down the bandwidth. With video steaming and downloading increasing thirtyfold, I think we’ve found the cause.
Would it help if hotels had better movies? Probably not.
We’ve become some accustomed to our on-demand, Internet culture, we know what we want and we want it now.
Dear Brothers
It’s porn.
Honestly, that’s what I thought after reading this article with all the hotel wifi info I just shared with you.
Gone are the days of ordering “dirty movies” at the hotel. Just pull them up online.
Whether you’re on the road for your job, Church, band — whatever — we need to be on guard.
What kind of things can someone who’s “on the road” do to avoid the pornography trap?
Two to a room?
Devices-off at a certain time and only used around others?
Are there any accountability apps for tablets?
Thoughts, please!
[via NY Times | Image via Curtis Perry]
Eric J says
I was told that is why a lot of hotels charge for wifi because they were losing pay per view money.
Eric Dye says
A double wammy, eh?
Brendan says
If thats true, I really wish they would put content filters on their APs. Maybe it would speed up the connection for the rest of us just trying to check our email.
Eric Dye says
No kidding!
Enzo says
Actually there is a feature on iOS devices that allows you to enable restrictions for Safari and YouTube and your iTunes account. I don’t know how effective this is and it would require you to allow someone else to set the restrictions password on your device. As I stated I don’t know exactly what this will actually restrict.
Eric Dye says
An app specifically designed would certainly be a slam dunk solution.
Drew Palko says
XXXChurch provides an app for Computers as well as iPhones/iPads/Android called X3Watch… there are some free versions if you look/search hard enough… but the paid versions aren’t expensive at all considering what’s on the line. here’s a link http://www.x3watch.com/x3watchiphone.html
Eric Dye says
Thanks, Drew, will look into this further!