A recent blog post by my friend Mike Rohde (see his link above) regarding his finding free Wi-Fi in an older hotel made me think about a trip I took two years ago to Las Vegas. I was driving, and got too tired to make it all the way to Las Vegas, so I stopped in Beatty, NV. I stayed at a Motel 6, and out there, in the middle of the desert, I had free Wi-Fi! I thought it was a fantastic idea, and even let the Motel 6 folk (Accor Hotels) know that I thought so. They let me know that it was a "prototype hotel", for future hotel design presumably.

So, why bring this up? If Motel 6, and other low-priced hotels and motels can provide free Wi-Fi, why in the heck don't the higher priced hotels do so? It comes down to money. The people staying there can afford to *pay* for an added service, like Wi-Fi, so they charge them. The only reason we had free Wi-Fi at the PalmSource DevCon recently was that PalmSource underwrote it. As soon as the conference was over, poof! Free Wi-Fi was gone.

So, this means I will be seeking out the free Wi-Fi hotels in the future... I guess that makes me a cheapskate... I like bang for my buck.