the pending death of "pay-as-you-surf" internet

FREE or pay-as-you-surf Internet in hotel rooms is a hot topic in hospitality conversations right now. So like any good sheep I'll follow and give my two cents. If you read this blog regularly you know I'm a big fan of FREE Internet. I believe with an unwavering constitution that Internet in your hotel room should be FREE (read this post to understand my stance). It's my technologically advanced right! I deserve FREE Internet! I HATE paying $9.99 when I want to get online...but I'd happily pay $15 to not care if I was paying $9.99.

I've had dozens of conversations about this topic, and inevitably there is someone making it out to be a complex issue that has many different factors contributing to if a hotel provides FREE Internet. I hear them, but to them I say Bologna! (pronounced ba-low-nee for those who speak no French) Lines have been drawn and there are three camps when it comes to "how should a hotel recoup costs for providing web access to customers".camp #1: the money-grubbers
I think that title says who this camp is. This camp believes vehemently that Internet access is not an inclusive service and should cost extra. They love the additional revenue pay-as-you-surf supposedly proves to generate and are not willing to discuss the possible or plausible revenue benefits of inclusive pricing and better customer satisfaction. This camp should be forced to pack up their tents one week per month and work from hotels that do not offer free Internet. Or, everyone in this camp should be forced to pay for Internet access by the day, hour, and minute at their normal work place and then be forced to submit justification with the receipt on what they accomplished during those charged Internet hours. Or, forced to pay for it out of pocket like the thousands of entrepreneurs who don't get to "expense" Internet access and feel nickle-and-dimed by the pay-as-you-surf camp.

camp #2: the corner drug dealers
This camp is like the corner speed dealer getting a casual user hooked. Stay at our hotel and we'll give you crappy casual speed for free. If you want to have web conference calls, host a webinar, give a demo, perform remote actions on a system via remote control software, or let your kids play games you have to buy the "good speed". The good speed is expensive, and they know you will always generally feel the need for speed. And once you get the good speed you can't really go back to the free speed...and they know it. This camp should be forced to perform their normal daily business functions for an extended period of time on the "free speed". And then smacked with a purse when they ask for good speed. This is also the camp that uses soft word rhetoric in calling themselves peace makers and collaborators by giving us a choice. "If you are a casual user then you get it free." In my world there is no casual Internet use, and my world generally doesn't include streaming video or online gaming. But as iTunes, Hulu, and ModernFeed become mainstream and talking with clients via Skype is normal, that is the casual user and then the corner drug dealer forces me to pay for speed.

camp #3: camp of the free, web surfing rave
This is the camp that wants all the speed FREE. If all you have is slow speed then I want that FREE, but if you have high speed i want that FREE, too! It is my Larry G. Roberts given right to have it FREE. This I believe is the largest camp, of which i am a card carrying member. Give me FREE or I'll give you pay-as-you-surf Internet death!

And that then leads me to the real point of this post. Unless something changes pay-as-you-surf hotel Internet will go the way of pay-as-you-talk hotel phones. Phone calls used to be a pretty good money maker for hotels. X dollars per call and then charges per minute. If you traveled regularly on business your hotel phone bill was hefty. First came the invention of 1-800 calling cards, so then hotels started to charge for the 1-800 calls and local calls to make up for lost revenue. Then came the mobile phone. Reception made it hard to only use mobile phones, so hotels still invested heavily in PBX infrastructure. But hotels quickly found their phone investment would never pay for itself because mobile phones became business phones and free VOIP via computer came about (i.e. Skype) and hotel phones are now a required convenience to call the front desk. Phones are now just a cost of doing business. Internet access is a requirement for doing business (both personal business and business business).

I've heard a few technology executives from some hotel and vendor companies say that satellite Internet will never be fast enough to meet the demands of the consumer. They may be right and probably are, but what I can promise is that if it doesn't meet the requirement someone will invent something that will. Being fixed to a specific location for highly capable wireless high speed Internet access will be a thing of the past in 5 years (maybe less). Internet access is already at the milestone hotel phones reached with the introduction of the early mobile phone where "good enough" is already applying. I'm paying for this cellular based wireless service and it is fast enough to do what I need, and it's FREE. Note it's not really FREE, I just already paid for it. So why would I pay $9.99 to use your Internet. Especially if I can't expense it. But if your Internet was already included in my room rate then it is FREE and I'd have the choice to use it or my Internet. And if I chose your Internet then you get to ask me who I am...bonus for the hotel.

I believe we are at cross-roads for hoteliers. Pay-as-you-surf Internet will go the way of the pay-as-you-talk phone and for many hotels, especially those without wireless. Infrastructure costs will either be sunk or take much longer to pay off as the hard decision is made on how to off-set those costs. It is time to make the decision that Internet should be FREE. If you cannot figure out a way to provide it FREE then I'll use my own and stop paying for yours altogether!

Photos curteousy of dana 2, miss rouge, rightee, and TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³