I’m in Dallas Texas this week. — where everything’s bigger. The weather’s great, the food’s tasty, and things are going pretty smoothly at my customer’s site. 
But either I’m spoiled or I don’t properly appreciate the economic differences between hotels here and those in Columbus GA.
Over the past 8 weeks or so I’ve spent many nights at three different hotels, all of which provided Internet access for free.
In the hotel here they want $10/day. Jim G. tells me, via Twitter, that his hotel wants “$15 and change,” so I guess I shouldn’t complain too much. I wonder however, with the ‘net becoming more & more pervasive every day, how much longer hotels will be able to collect fees like this.
We’re getting so as that we try real hard to not stay at hotels that charge for internet service. So far, I’ve only had to pay one time, and that was $7.95/day, down in Northern Virginia.
Maybe I’m just unfortunate, but I’ve had to pay the last two times I’ve traveled. They were both $10 a day in San Ramon, CA and Chicago.
This was the reason I ended up getting the verizon broadband wireless card: in one month of heavy travel, I racked up well over $100 in Internet access fees at airports and hotels. I pay Verizon $79/month, and get full-time Internet access (on the train to/from work, in airports, hotels, at conferences, etc.) – a much better bargain.