33 Years of the Digest ... founded August 21, 1981Copyright © 2015 E. William Horne. All Rights Reserved.The Telecom Digest for Jul 11, 2015
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| Warren G. Harding |
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| Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 10:51:30 -0700 (PDT) From: HAncock4 <withheld@invalid.telecom-digest.org> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Free Hotel Wi-Fi is increasingly on Travelers' Must-Have Lists Message-ID: <a7406c49-a773-45ee-a303-d7a3b89f4073@googlegroups.com> On Wednesday, July 8, 2015 at 8:47:37 PM UTC-4, Bill Horne wrote: > However, the hotel operators are charging high rates for providing > it in the rooms, apparently because they can. To them, as the > author of that original piece pointed out, "it's found money". Yes, it's just business. I heard that in the early days of TV in rooms, there was a coin box next to set and a fee to watch TV. Years ago, a local telephone call from the room phone cost 50c when the payphone in the lobby was only 10c. (I don't know if they still charge for local calls today, or if they charge extra for long distance calls.) I suspect that in a few years the wi-fi will be free and a standard feature of a hotel room, just like A/C, TV, and a phone are now standard. > I'm uncomfortable with the notion that we must all accept that we need > it all the time, and I wonder if we'd do better to question why WiFi > in hotel rooms is so important in most businessmens' minds. I'm not > talking about watching NetFlix or updating FacePage: those are > personal matters, not germane to the question of why - and this is the > reason I am personnally skeptical about the benefits of "smart" phones > and other always-on Internet tools - we accept the idea that we must > spend all the time we used to have to ourselves, peering at a computer > screen for business reasons. A computer and the Internet are tools, just like a pocket calculator, a voice telephone, and a telegraph line are tools. Sometimes a business person will have a lot of work to do and spend all night working with those tools, other times a person will briefly check their email. In the old days, a business person would often have a telephone glued to his ear. Indeed, I remember being at a hotel that frequently would page guests, and had loads of housephones in all public spaces, even scattered around the pool deck, for guests to take calls. The Bell System had developed special PBX's to serve hotels, which included direct lines to toll operators to expedite long distance calls. Large hotels had a Western Union DeskFax machine for telegrams. [snip] > The best and most effective managers know that their subordinates > need that quiet time: indeed, the chance to close a door and be > alone with my thoughts was one of the best parts of being on the > road. Back in the 1960s, some business people wrote that they wished they could escape the ringing telephone (Ref "Up the Organization" by Robert Townsend). As to thinking of new ideas, certainly quiet time does help creativity. But a new idea for business often needs to be fleshed out, and there a computer can help fill in the details - check facts and assumptions, do calculations, and help organization thoughts. |
| Date: 9 Jul 2015 23:35:36 -0000 From: "John Levine" <johnl@iecc.com> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Free Hotel Wi-Fi is increasingly on Travelers' Must-Have Lists Message-ID: <20150709233536.9448.qmail@ary.lan> >> Well, it does cost something to provide the service, and whatever a >> hotel charges for it, the cost pales in comparison to the value of >> your *time*. > >It costs something to provide electricity, and water, and television, and >telephony, and heating (or cooling, all depending on the season), and soap, >and linens, and freedom from roaches, bedbugs, fleas, lice, ants, and other >vermin. That's why there's a price to be paid for a night's stay in a room. > >Do I deserve to have a flush-o-meter on the toilet so that, at check-out, >my bill can reflect each 4 gallons of water expended at each flush? Given the conditions in California, I expect to see hotels with free wifi and pay toilets. R's, John |
| Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2015 19:13:05 -0400 From: Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu> To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: Re: Free Hotel Wi-Fi is increasingly on Travelers' Must-Have Lists Message-ID: <barmar-E70A93.19130509072015@88-209-239-213.giganet.hu> In article <1olamrwqxfdhw$.m61zma6vmspn.dlg@40tude.net>, tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> wrote: > On Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:24:34 +0000 (UTC), Garrett Wollman stimulated the > Moderator to write: > > > Well, it does cost something to provide the service, and whatever a > > hotel charges for it, the cost pales in comparison to the value of > > your *time*. > > It costs something to provide electricity, and water, and television, and > telephony, and heating (or cooling, all depending on the season), and soap, > and linens, and freedom from roaches, bedbugs, fleas, lice, ants, and other > vermin. That's why there's a price to be paid for a night's stay in a room. > > Do I deserve to have a flush-o-meter on the toilet so that, at check-out, > my bill can reflect each 4 gallons of water expended at each flush? This is all very silly. There's a simple reason why luxury chains charge an arm and a leg for Internet access: because they can. The fact that you're willing to pay at least $100 more per night than at a discount hotel or motel means that you're not pinching pennies. Many of their customers are business travelers, they'll just put it on their expense accounts. Why don't they charge for things like water, climate control, etc.? Because these have traditionally been included, and it's usually hard to get away with adding charges for previously free features (although this hasn't stopped the airline industry from adding things like luggage fees). Internet access, on the other hand, has long been viewed as an "extra" (like room service and the mini-bar, whose prices are also exorbitant), not a necessity for living like water and electricity. BTW, while hotels don't charge for maid services, many have recently started offering bonuses if you skip a day, which kind of amounts to the same thing. Discount hotels, on the other hand, use price as their main marketing feature. Charging extra for something like this would cut into the only reason people go to those hotels. -- Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu Arlington, MA *** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me *** |
| Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 14:46:07 +0000 (UTC) From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney) To: telecomdigestsubmissions.remove-this@and-this-too.telecom-digest.org. Subject: 1xx exchange in area code 212? Message-ID: <mnolrf$odc$1@pcls7.std.com> A local (Boston) TV station had a news story on the transformation of a part of Boston's Chinatown to look like New York City's Chinatown for the filming of the new Ghostbusters movie which is being filmed there. They mentioned such things as changing street signs, adding such things as NY Lottery stickers in doors and NYC health board signs in the windows of restaurants, and signs on buildings with Area Code 212 telephone numbers. While the reporter was discussing how they were trying to make things as realistic as possible, I was sitting there thinking how wrong the sign behind him looked. Why? It had the telephone number 212-165-8220. Exchange 165? I have never seen a 7 digit telephone number begin with a 1 (or 0). Is this a glaring mistake or are they assigning exchanges beginning with 1 (and 0?) in area code 212 now? The place across the street also had a sign with a 212-165-xxxx telephone number as well. The days of using exchange 555 for phony telephone numbers are long gone, but 165? |
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