Kimpton Hotel's Palomar Hotel in San Francisco Has Pitiful Broadband

The other day Jonathan Greene posted about the lousy performance when it came to Broadband that he had at the Hotel Monaco in Seattle. The Monaco, like the Palomar here in San Francisco where I am for the week are both Kimpton Hotels and have a long tradition of catering to technology types on the road.

In the past I've always had a better than average experience at the Kimpton Hotel properties when it comes to broadband, but today, on the eve of Java One, my experience is nothing less than disappointing.

First I couldn't log on, as the auto sign on said I wasn't the guest in the room I was listing (wrong) and then it went on to say there wasn't a credit card on file (wrong again as I already had checked in.) That required a call to support from ElevenWireless, the company which handles the connectivity.

After I was on, I realized the support person didn't give me the service I was trying to activate, the more expensive ($4.95 vs. Free) service that promises higher speeds and better throughput vs. the free service.

Here's what I found out:

Free service gave me 300 k down, and 150 k up. That's not really broadband.

The paid service is giving me between 330k and 500k down and between 150 and 500 k up over a series of tests.

As JG says, "sorry. This isn't broadband."