My Hotel's Broadband In Fort Lauderdale Isn't Working

I don't like the idea of being broadband handicapped at conferences and trade shows, not with the way both my business and professional journalist endeavors are growing so to wake up and find out in the middle of the night that broadband is out, and no real repair date is known is rather unsettling.

i-Bahn, one of the better hotel Internet broadband service providers is known for their support, so that's why I was very surprised to wake up in the middle of the night and find my hotel, The Marriott Marina in Fort Lauderdale, and the official hotel for the TMCNET Internet Telephony Conference not working.

It seems since Saturday their has been a known server issue according to the support person I spoke with at i-bahn. The problem is simple. No IP addresses can be assigned to at least half the hotel's guests. Since it worked this morning when I checked in, obviously someone thought they fixed it. My guess is the server or router isn't renewing its IP address lease to the T-1 or greater circuit here at the hotel.

This is unfortunately becoming a recurring problem at hotels. My neighborhood Marriott in Del Mar was offline from Open Table for weeks because of an IP address problem.  With a technology conference due to start today, it's not good news.

Sadly, with multiple service providers in the mix there will be a lot of finger pointing regarding who is at fault here, just like in Del Mar, where I had to raise the roof with Open Table along with the restaurant's GM Chris Goodyear to get Open Table back on line.

That's why when I read this on the i-bahn site I was so surprised, making me think it's more a hotel issue than their's.

My past experiences with STSN have been flawless, especially in Europe, which makes me wonder if the hotel itself is not to blame. While I have an EvDO card, not everyone does. And, while the EvDO provides access, there's more than access that people like me need these days. The recording of World Technology Roundup that I co-host with Ken Rutkowski requires real broadband so we can Skype or Gizmo to each other to record. My international client discussions use IP soft clients as a means to stay in touch via Skype, Gizmo or others. PhoneGnome's SoftGnome does also. What's more current EvDO quality in Fort Lauderdale is below the level where voice traffic is stable....hence, I'm in a heap of hurt until the problem gets resolved.

Why?

With two conferences at the same time on two different coasts, five speakers from four different companies presenting in two different places, my two panels and all the regular work flow that has to occur, not being on with full broadband is a problem.

I admit, I'm not the normal traveler, but I do choose my hotels with care and broadband being in place is the key and deciding factor. Sure these things happen. But for those of us who live in an always on world, we have come to expect the mentality of the hotel operators to be better. If power was out, there would be backup generators in place. Hotels have to begin realizing that they need back ups for broadband access too.

I'm hopeful a note to Rich Tehrani and a call to the hotel yields answers when I wake back up in a few hours.

Stay tuned.