I’m in Manchester at the moment doing some filming at Old Trafford, the ‘Theatre of Dreams’ for Manchester United.
I came up from London last night and stayed overnight in the Premier Inn next to the stadium. I then had to make what I’m sure is a very familiar decision to most readers — WiFi or not? Should I give a tenner to Spectrum Interactive (the providers of WiFi at the Premier Inn) or should I simply continue to use my 3 MiFi?
My dilemma was this. I had 1.3GB to download and it would obviously be a lot faster via a fixed connection. However I’ve been to far too many hotels with utterly shit WiFi so I’ve grown very, very wary of wasting my cash unnecessarily. In this context I’d have been happy to pay for the utility.
What’s your perspective?
I took a video and walked through my reasoning. Let me know what you think…
Doesn’t work with Spectrum, but lots of other networks have partnered with Skype allowing you to use “Skype Access” and pay per minute from Skype credit. You can connect for a minute, spend 19p (or there about) and do a quick speed test
Oh that is a nice one Ed. Good thinking!
I have stayed at the Premier there and used the WiFi, I don’t recall it being that bad but this was a year ago so things could have changed. Videos streamed with no problem but I don’t think it was fully loaded with guests when I was there.
Love this when your in AirPorts or anywhere new with a new WiFi provider, works really well although a little more expensive. Avoid from signing up with Boingo and I always use this function.
Nice idea Ed … and simply FYI Spectrum Interactive does now partner with Skype Access.
Ah good news that
I think this is a bit unfair. I realise that your complaint is that you don’t know what the wifi speed is, but in the interests of research I think you should have tried it.
I just reached the end of my attention span Simon. I had a business
critical requirement to fix immediately.
I’ve just stumbled across your article by way of a Google search, as I’m sat in a generic London Travelodge, attempting to surf on Spectrum’s network. Having forked out considerably more for a week here than I pay for a month’s high-speed broadband at home, I confess I was hoping (perhaps naively!) for at least a half decent connection speed. Having suffered through a few attempts at browsing I decided to run a speed test on the connection: 0.07 Mbps (I kid you not…)! Sufficed to say, next time I won’t bother giving Spectrum a penny – let alone £20 for a week on less than dial-up speeds – and I’d warn anyone else off them too! (P.S. I don’t have enough bandwidth to even watch your video, sorry!)
Geez I’m sorry to hear that. Dear me. If you’re a regular away from
home, do think about getting a MiFi device. Saves me from the 0.07k
speeds.