Two years ago, many if not all hotels I visited on business trips charged very hefty prices for both WiFi or PC (in the lobby) access. Up to 25 Euro for a 24 hour pass. Because most of us are on a expense account during such trips no one bothered. I do. But because there are so many conference centres and hotels, they have piped down now. WiFi access is either free or a small amount and you have access to PCs if you are a guest (with your swipe card) for free as well. It has become a means of competition. Not any more because now all those hotels offer it.
But there's some else as well. I use a HSPDA PC Card in my laptop now. For a flat fee a month I have unlimited and fairly speedy internet access, nation wide. But..... only in my own country. The fee is 75 Euro a month. We share this card between a 3 person IT staff. One of us, our programmer, took the card with him during his vacation to Lanzarote. Not knowing about the roaming charges. His kids used the card every day and he streamed radio over it. He took care of a few problems and was happily humming away. Two weeks passed when our financial controller came to my office, a paper in hand. It was the monthly statement for the card's subscription. The bill was a mind boggling 5,897 Euro! For two weeks worth of usage. And later another bill followed, in the same region. The fine print showed that when used abroad, the flat fee is replaced by a charge per MB. Dang! Almost 11,000 Euro and there was nothing we could do about it. I contacted the guy in his hotel and he was stunned and stopped using the card but it was too late. This is common practise in Europe and last Summer we saw numerous news items about people who had been using Internet on their smart phone on e.g. a nice and sunny terrace in Italy only to find a 2,000 Euro bill upon return from their holiday. 😱
