Unwired at the Hotel

So I'm at a conference in Baltimore, staying at a very nice hotel in the Inner Harbor, and I'm ridiculously unwired. The hotel's conference rooms, where I spend most of my day, have a wi-fi network ... but I can't sign on to it. My hotel room has internet access ... but it's $10 a day, and the 2-foot of Ethernet cable they expect me to use to connect to the network jack effectively shackles me to the room's desk.

As a geek with a home wi-fi network, who's used to being able to take his laptop everywhere, this is infuriating.

So, hotels of the world, listen up: it's no longer enough for you to provide high speed internet access from rooms. You need to cut the wires, and you need to offer rates that incorporate 24/7 internet access. For modern geeks and -- I suspect -- even for business travelers, the Web is ubiquitous. Balkanizing your hotel's internet coverage, and chaining your guests to their desks, is eventually going to lose you customers.