Discussion: Holiday Inn WiFi

Agreed. It is incredibly expensive for me to use my iPhone in the U.S. and I'd planned to get a lot of things done on the weekend in between races, most of which required WiFi. The front desk staff were very friendly and kept saying pleasantly that the WiFi was working in some (unspecified) parts of the hotel and would undoubtedly be working everywhere soon. Which definitely wasn't the case. They referred me to their tech support company, with whom I spoke twice for a total of 45 minutes. They showed dozens of us "connected" to the Holiday Inn network but the network was not connected to the Internet. For some reason, that reduced the urgency on their part. Certainly, no one at the hotel or tech support company thought it was a big deal. Strange.

You are much more charitable toward them than I am.

My experience was --

1. Find out it's not working, call up the front desk to complain, they give me a song and dance about how it's working for some people and not others, so maybe there's something wrong on my end. And, here's an 800 number you can call.

2. After 30 minutes with the tech support for the cable provider, during which I get more attempts to lay the blame on me, plus more comments about how it seems to be working in part of the hotel, the guy discovers that since mid-afternoon they have actually been treating it as a major outage, i.e. not working for anyone, and trying to get it fixed.

Wouldn't it have been nice if the front desk knew that (or perhaps "admitted" that is the right word).

3. That was Friday evening. Saturday morning I ask at the desk, complain that no WiFi is equivalent these days to no toilets in terms of consumer expectations. I'm assured that it's working for some people.

4. Saturday afternoon, same discussion, this time with the supervisor. Still the same bullshit.

5. Sunday morning it's working. But now you need to go down to the front desk to get a new log-in name and password, because what they first gave you expired after 24 hours. By then, time was running short to head off to the ultra long.

Never did use the WiFi. Fortunately Bill had an iPad that worked off a cell signal, so when we needed directions we could use that. Of course that brought Apple maps into play, got to experience first-hand the highway wave effect. I had assumed that with all the crap they got when Apple maps came out, that they would have fixed that by now, but I guess not.

Sure ain't going back to that Holiday Inn again.

Me neither. Some people solved the problem by connecting to the Ethernet cable in the room but at least two of us tried it and were unsuccessful so I don't think even *that* was working everywhere.

The second time I spoke with the tech support folks, they said that even though they worked 24/7, they wouldn't send people in the night "to fix something like this". Given that they are in the business of making WiFi work, I had to wonder what situation *would* be considered serious enough to get them to make a service call during the night.

The next day, the hotel staff assured me that they *had* come during the night and had fixed everything and that everyone else was on WiFi now except for me. As you said, I kept having to convince people that the problem wasn't on my side. It was a Twilight Zone experience!

Fortunately, I had a relaxed OUSA Rogaine Committee meeting in the sunshine with Barb B followed by the excellent U.S. Team Social, so there was no time to get bored. And when I needed GPS directions to go home, I just e-mailed Hammer. :)

Apple maps
I have resisted installing iOs 6 for just that reason.

Unfortunately it came with my new iPad. At least it won't work on my first, now Lyn's! Yes, she has actually worked a computer. And found it useful! Wonders of Apple never cease.

No WiFi tantamount to no toilets...pretty close anyway, depends on who you talk to.
I fumbled (start: no Holiday Inn access page requesting password), acted on previous assumptions, plugged in Ethernet, opened Network Preferences, clicked on 'assist me', read 'advanced', fumbled some more (generally clueless at every juncture) & somehow succeeded Fri night. Saturday morning, saw the HI access prompt page but password expired (tho it said I had til 2:35pm 12/1), got another password in the lobby returning from breakfast and lived happily ever after WiFi-wise (but still clueless). I chalk the few wins and many losses up to "technofusion"®:).

Apple maps workaround: just use maps.google.com in your browser. Unbelievable that Apple has persisted in this boondoggle.

I had found Apple maps to be just find before yesterday, when I had my first negative Apple maps experience. I'm in Sjusjøen, which is not a super metropolis, and I wanted to walk to get some food from my hotel. I *could* have just walked downstairs to the reception and asked, but I have an iPhone, so why would I do that? Tried a few generic search terms like food, gas, store, bensin, butikk, restaurant... nothing within 20km. So then I tried names of all kinds of shops - 7-11, Joker, Narvesen, Rema1000, Kiwi, Rimi. Still nothing. Tried Google maps and, sure enough, Kiwi up the road, less than 1km. A little disappointed.