From the May/June Issue

Want to check your e-mail while lounging at the hotel pool? You can at Los Angeles’s Beverly Hilton, which offers poolside dataports and laptop rentals. “Internet access is as necessary to today’s traveler as a telephone,” says Chris Crider, the hotel’s general manager. So Crider provided it in nearly every room throughout the hotel, including the restaurant.

According to some estimates, more than 70 percent of business travelers now carry a laptop. Opinion Research Corporation reports that 59 percent would prefer a computer with Internet access in every room. In recent years, hotels have begun to recognize this and have retooled their properties. Here’s what they have to offer:

Dataports
Camilla Clymer, president of Nashville-based ELHI Publishers Services, swears by Marriott when she needs reliable computer connections. “Not only do they have dataports,” she says, “but they usually have dual lines so you can stay plugged in and function on an outside telephone.” Most domestic chains—even budget stops like Motel 6, Super 8, and Howard Johnson—now offer dataports in every room. Often built in to the sides of hotel phones or even some desk lamps, these analog jacks ensure a safe line for your modem. Standard phone jacks are digital—a higher current—and may ruin your modem. Line testers and digital-to-analog converters are available at computer stores and online at mobile outfitters like www.igo.com and www.roadwarrior.com. (Check out www.roadnews.com for more plug-in tips, particularly if you’re traveling internationally where your modem may not function at all.)

DSL Connections
Many domestic hotels are going a step further and offering something that is not yet commonplace on the home front—high-speed Internet access. Some 50 times faster than a dial-up or modem connection, DSL (digital subscriber line), operates over a phone line but won’t interrupt phone use, so you can talk and surf simultaneously. With a DSL connection, you avoid hotel charges when your modem dials an Internet service provider (ISP) such as AOL or EarthLink. Chains currently installing DSL include Days Inn, Four Seasons, Hilton, Marriott, Radisson, Ramada, Renaissance, Sheraton, and Wyndham.

Keep in mind that high-speed Internet access may vary among hotels even within a chain, since many are individually owned or franchised. If your laptop doesn’t have a built-in network card, you’ll need an external network card, which costs about the same as a modem card; combination cards sell for around $200 U.S. Daily hotel DSL access runs about $9.95 a day, little more than the cost of an in-room movie. Staybridge, an extended-stay hotel, offers DSL for $10 a stay (not a day), and Wingate, a moderately priced chain of newly constructed wired hotels, offers the service for free.

Cyber Valets
If computing on the road still sounds daunting, some upscale hotels now offer 24-hour on-site support to help with computer crashes, problems with printing and Internet connections, adapters, and more. Hyatt staffs a “Technology Concierge” at 80 hotels worldwide, and Ritz-Carlton is adding a “Technology Butler” to all of its properties around the world. The Ritz-Carlton Chicago (a Four Seasons hotel) offers a “personal computer connectivity kit” upon request, and a computer help service called “Compcierge.” Inter-Continental hotels provide adapters and other equipment for a modest fee.

In-room Computers
Some Hampton Inn, Comfort Inn, Holiday Inn Express, and Main Stay Suites hotels offer flat-screen in-room computers with Microsoft Office software for about the same rate as a DSL connection, so you can leave your laptop home (you can bring needed files with you on floppy disks, though you’ll need to determine format compatibility). Or if that’s too bulky, sign up with an ASP, or application service provider, a sort of virtual hard drive where you can store data on the Web. Currently the largest Internet hard drive company is X:drive (www.xdrive.com), which provides 25 megabytes of secure space, “the equivalent of 17 floppies,” for free.

Web TV
A few hotels are testing Web TV, high-speed cable access through in-room televisions. W Hotels (www.w-hotels.com), a new upscale business hotel chain from Starwood Hotels & Resorts, equips every guest room with a 27-inch (69-centimeter) TV with an infrared keyboard and Internet access. The cyber TVs are great for surfing, but you can’t access files or software. Even if in-room Internet access isn’t offered at your hotel, you’re likely to find an Internet kiosk in a public area, but you’re often limited to surfing on a kiosk, too.

Internet-connected Fitness
And since you can’t leave the Internet behind when you travel, why not surf or read e-mail while you get in shape? San Francisco-based Netpulse has created a touch-screen panel allowing Web access that attaches to exercise bikes, stair climbers, and other fitness equipment. Users can connect to their own online fitness profile and even earn frequent flyer miles as they exercise. The machines are already installed in the Hyatt San Francisco, Las Vegas’s MGM Grand, New York’s Trump Palace, the Atlanta Hilton, and others. At today’s high-tech hotels, surfing the Net is simply no sweat.