Mobile Computing: Bed, Board, and Broadband Access

Hotels that offer high-speed Web access; remembering the Apple Newton.

James A. Martin

Feature: High-Tech Hotels

Intelligent hotel minibars that automatically offer happy-hour prices on tiny scotch bottles are already a reality. But as dedicated business travelers, we don't care about such high-tech guest room amenities. We only want to know where our next high-speed Internet fix is coming from, so we can stay productive on the road, right?

Okay, I don't buy that all-work-and-no-play malarkey either. But this is the "Mobile Computing" newsletter, not "Creative Loafing" (the name of an actual publication, bless their hearts). So in accordance with my mandate to write about mobile computing and your desire to read about it, I will stick to the topic at hand: How to find hotel rooms with broadband Net access.

Start With Expedia

Expedia recently introduced a feature that lets you quickly find hotels offering in-room, high-speed Internet access. The 21 destinations covered include Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Nashville, New York, San Francisco, and Washington. The hotels listed are only those that are Expedia "special rate" partners, which means your search results won't be exhaustive. Also, Internet access fees weren't listed for the hotels I checked out. (Rates vary by hotel but are often about $10 for 24 hours.) For specifics, you'll need to contact the hotel directly. And that's a good idea anyway, as some guest rooms at wired hotels may not offer high-speed Internet access.

Check Out Wayport and STSN

Wayport and STSN are the two leading providers of broadband Internet access to hotel chains in the United States. You can search for hotels offering Wayport and STSN service at their respective Web sites.

Wayport delivers broadband Internet access to some 450 hotels in the United States, Canada, and abroad, including participating Four Seasons, Wyndham, Best Western, Hilton, Days Inn, and Marriott properties. Wayport's site provides an interactive U.S. map for browsing by state, plus the ability to search by hotel brand, such as Radisson.

STSN says it's wired about 450 hotels worldwide, too, including Comfort Inn, Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza, Hampton Inn, Sheraton, and luxury hotels such as Ritz-Carlton and Mandarin Oriental. STSN's Web site doesn't include an easy-to-use map as Wayport's does, but search results show hotels with broadband access in meeting rooms as well as guest accommodations. I tested STSN's service in a Charlotte, North Carolina hotel this spring and found it surprisingly easy to set up and use.

Round Up the Usual Suspects

Generally speaking, the hotel chains most likely to offer broadband Internet access are Hilton, Marriott, and Starwood properties (which include Westin, Sheraton, Four Points, and W hotels), according to Brian Garavuso, chief technology officer for Interstate Hotels, an independent hotel management company. The hotel chains' Web sites let you sniff out broadband properties, with varying degrees of ease.

Hilton: Fastest to browse was Hilton.com's Business travel section, which lets you quickly search for hotels with broadband access without having to first make any other selections.

Marriott: Once you select a destination, the Marriott.com advanced search page offers high-speed Internet access as a search filter.

Starwood: Starwood.com makes you first select your type of travel (business or pleasure), destination, arrival and departure dates, and number of adults and rooms needed. Only then can you narrow your search to hotels with broadband access.

Keep an Eye Out for Newcomers

In addition to the established chains, there are several new, upcoming, and lesser-known hospitality companies worth checking out.

Wingate Inns: Designed for business travelers, Wingate Inns claims to have been the first to offer free broadband Internet access in all its guest rooms. The chain opened its first hotel in July 1996 and currently has 100-some locations in the United States.

InTown Suites: This budget, extended-stay chain offers weekly rates around $180. (Yes, you read that correctly.) The 53 InTown Suites properties include free broadband Internet access in all guest rooms, according to a spokesperson.

Matrix ESuites: This planned chain is "the first and only hotel brand designed especially for the techno road warrior," according to a spokesperson. Each guest room will offer custom workstations, computers, copier-fax printers, and broadband Internet access, with target room rates of $129 to $139 per night. The company expects to begin construction on its first six properties by year's end, with openings in late 2003.

Now About That Minibar...

I just can't resist elaborating on the intelligent hotel minibar. These "e-fridges" include sensors that alert the front desk when a beverage has been removed, presumably so the office knows what to charge you and housekeeping knows which items to restock. Orwellian implications aside, the cool part is that e-fridges can be programmed to reduce drink prices during happy hour. Of course, what goes down can also go up--but I prefer not to think about that.

E-fridges have been installed in the Nikko San Francisco and the Hay-Adams in Washington, DC, among other locations.

Notebooks

News: Flash Memory Fandango

If you've got a lot of portable devices--notebook, digital camera, PDA, and the like--you've probably got a lot of flash memory cards and formats to deal with. Addonics Technologies is promising a solution to that quandary of so many storage formats, so little time. The company's new Addonics Pocket Ultra DigiDrive connects to a USB 2.0 or FireWire port, can act as an external PC Card hard drive, and with the appropriate adapters, reads and writes to a variety of flash memory media, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, and Memory Stick. The $89 base includes a USB 2.0 interface cable; a model with adapters for nine flash-memory formats sells for $149 (USB) or $179 (FireWire). You can find the best prices at the PCWorld.com Product Finder.

News: Notebook or PDA?

AlphaSmart recently announced the Dana ($399), a Palm OS-based "laptop alternative." The Dana combines a full-size keyboard with a black-and-white screen that's much wider than the display on a PDA. The device runs Palm OS software and includes a Microsoft Word-compatible word processor. It has two slots for Secure Digital and MultiMediaCard cards, 8MB of memory, and a rechargeable battery. The Dana HotSyncs with Windows and Mac computers via a USB cable and also supports infrared transfers.

Though it's marketed as a low-cost portable computer for the education market, I suspect mobile business types will find the Dana of interest, too.

News: Legacy Ports for Ultraportables

To save space, most new ultraportable notebooks don't include the serial and parallel ports that were once standard on all computers. Keyspan's workaround, the $79 Mini USB Port Replicator, combines a serial, parallel, and two USB 1.1 ports in one small, lightweight (2 ounces) peripheral the size of a mobile phone. You can find the best prices on our Product Finder.

Handhelds

News: Latest Color Clie

The new Sony Clie PEG-SJ30 is similar to other recent mid-price Clie models except for its 320-by-320-pixel, 65,536-color screen. The SJ30 ($300) includes a 33-MHz Motorola DragonBall VZ processor, 16MB of memory, version 4.1 of the Palm OS, a MemoryStick slot, and mini-USB and Enhanced IrDA infrared interfaces. Measuring 2.8 inches by 4.1 inches by 0.7 inches, the new Clie weighs 4.9 ounces.

Tip: Can't Decide Between Palm, Pocket PC, or BlackBerry?

For those who agonize over what to have for lunch, making a commitment to a PDA can be downright traumatizing. But help is available. A Web site from Active Decisions walks you through the various handheld features and options, then provides a list of PDAs that match your requirements. The results include the latest pricing information supplied by PriceGrabber.com, a PC World partner that supplies pricing information for our Product Finder.

The site offers three ways to search for products, the easiest of which to use is the Power Search. That option lets you select feature preferences, such as color vs. black-and-white screen, then weigh its importance against other features. When selecting price, for instance, you can specify a range and indicate that compared to other features, price is somewhat, very, or extremely important. When you're done, the site compiles a table of products that meet your needs. I found the service helpful, and best of all, it's free.

Tip: Still Can't Decide on a Handheld? Consider This

Here's a PDA that does it all: Web browsing, e-mail, calendar, contact management, and handwriting recognition. It offers a large backlit screen, two PC Card slots, long battery life, PC and Mac connectivity, can provide support for Wi-Fi networks, and typically costs under $300. The catch? This PDA was discontinued four years ago.

I'm talking about Apple's Newton. Introduced in 1993, the Newton was ahead of its time, though its early handwriting recognition software often produced laughable results. (When reviewing the Newton in 1994, I wrote the words "Pia Zadora," which the Newton translated as "pig radar." But I digress.)

Steve Jobs killed the Newton upon his return to the ailing Apple in 1998. Nonetheless, the Newton's devoted followers continue to write applications, such as an MP3 player, to keep their beloved PDA current. An active online Newton community, Newtontalk.net, provides informal tech support. (Not long ago, I bought an Apple eMate, a Newton-OS based laptop, off EBay. Whenever I was confounded, I submitted a question to the Newtontalk community and almost instantly received helpful answers. But I digress again.)

"The Newton was always the Ferrari to the Palm's Yugo," said Peter Markel, a producer at PlanetNewton.com in a recent Wired.com article. "Hardware-wise, Newton could, and mostly still does, run rings around the Palm platform."

Interested? Check out the Newtons offered at EBay. Recently, fully equipped Newton MessagePad 2100 PDAs were going for $200 to $300, on average.

Wireless

News: Security Up in the Air

Are wireless local area networks secure? Not exactly. In recent aerial expeditions hobbyist WLAN sniffers took to the skies to see if they could intercept e-mail and Internet Relay Chat conversations sent wirelessly. An Australian "war flier" recently managed to pick up e-mail and IRC gabbing while flying at 1500 feet. And a private plane flying at altitudes between 1500 and 2500 feet over San Diego County detected 437 access points, only 23 percent of which had the most basic form of WLAN security.

The bottom line? The reach of WLANs can be far greater than what manufacturers claim, and many wireless networks are vulnerable because they don't provide the encryption necessary to protect data.

Sign up to have the Mobile Computing Tips Newsletter e-mailed to you each week.