On Sunday, July 14, 2002, at 10:38 , Ewen McNeill wrote:

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But, seeing that most hotels (outside NZ at least) offer a bedside Ethernet port, something should've been arranged IMO.

You must have a very different definition of "most" to the one I use. I've never actually seen this, even in hotels that advertise it.

I've seen it, even in the wilds of Toronto. I am also highly skeptical of Juha's use of "most", however. Joe - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog

The wireless OTOH was very handy -- thanks to those who arranged it. (Even if the ADSL did occassionally have problems it all mostly worked, and was very handy.) The wireless definitely worked as far as the chairs outside the bar, as I saw someone using it there; inside the bar I don't know, but it was close enough it probably should have worked.

I can't comment on wireless in the bar either as when it comes to beer and internet (in a bar no less) the beer normally wins =) it worked fine in front of the reception and out towards the pool. There was complete coverage right around the bar and down to the last conference room. I was quite impressed at the wireless footprint provided by just two access points - which where placed at locations convenient to the provided ethernet, not for optimal RF coverage. Very cheap and very easy as it was done. I hear the conference centre was trying to push ISDN as a means of connectivity - for a price involving far too many zeros. Maybe the hotel people will have noticed the large number of laptops in use while we where there...

You must have a very different definition of "most" to the one I use.

Quite right - although if 'most' is referring to hotels typically targeting the business traveller then you have quite a skewed sample on your hands... One has to wonder why more (possibly even any) hotels don't offer wireless connectivity - even if it is just in conference and lobby areas. The access points used at the conference are ~$350 a piece. All that's required on top of that is a decent connection of some sort (Jetstream for lack of any other widespread alternatives), and a bit of code to do some byte counting and billing (I'm not trying to suggest this is trivial, but it has been done - no, not ICMS!). Even if using Jetstream for access and passing on traffic charges to the user there is still a viable business case here. e.g. the setup at the Centra Auckland Airport, using 3 access points to provide reasonable coverage for bar/lobby/conference rooms/pool/little bit of leakage into rooms surounding pools, with a *nix box for accounting and ADSL card. APs: $1050 ($350ea - although probably closer to $250ea as they now retail for $US109) *nix box: 1@ $800 ADSL card: 1@ $200 eth switch:1@ $150 cabling: $500 (enough for material and time to run multiple simple runs) Gives a grand total of $2700 in upfront hardware. Lets say we want to recoup that in 12 months = $225/month. Add $69/month for Jetstream600 and an estimate of use at 15hours/week gives $4.90/hr to recoup. Charge traffic on top, and charge at minibar prices, say, $10/hour + 30c/MB. Hiring out of wireless cards: $200 ea, recoup over 3months, assume 2 days/wk utilisation = $8.33, so say $15/day. For your average business traveller I would imagine this stacks up wuite nicely, and the figures get much better as utilisation goes up. A pretty rough calculation, but it's a pretty positive start. Please don't start ripping holes in this scenario (for example labour costs have been left out here) as it is ismply intended to illustrate that these things really should be being done a lot more often, and needn't be confined to your traditional telco (in fact the traditional telco mode of operation would likely render such operations uneconomic...) Hope this isn't too off topic! Jonny. - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog