We bumped up their ISP plan to proper business class and got an upgraded router to boot. I ran wire from it to each floor via existing conduit and set up APs. No middle-man slave master for internet and certainly anyone else can service the setup after I was done. No other contract except their ISP. Everyone was happy.

A neighbouring place just a few turns away had wireless quite early from some archaic monster and they charge a hefty fee too. I have better reception on my cell when I'm in a low valley than at that place - 2 bars max. All the guests were huddled in the lobby.

I am new to HN so not sure how to message you outside this thread. Do you have any links that could point me in the direction to do some of my own network setup at home? I'm just a beginner but would love to start learning and fix some stuff

Edit: Here's the full playlist of his networking videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8RSFQG8do&list=PLF360ED108...

Thanks for the help everyone

I'm not sure that many places would be under a 10-year contract; that sounds like too long a contract (especially if the company wants several grands for support on a regular basis; I think 3 to 5 year contracts would be much more common and reasonable). Even if they are so long, crappy WiFi could as well be ground for breach-of-contract, and they should be able to have the vendor get busy.

They dont have to break their contract - pay the "external service provider" their fees, and still have money left over to pay for a real service - fast and non-shitty WiFi.

When it comes to 4 or 5 star hotels, I am surprised by this bullshit.

What they are in effect saying to you is "we made a bad business deal and it costs us too much", to which I replied -in a similar situation, 4 star hotel with 1992 wifi (yes it didnt exist at the time so shitty was it) -- "I must have made a bad trade myself, to pay for stay with wifi when the wifi in fact imaginary, good day" and never went to that hotel again, found a 3 star later on with 100mbps and uncongested wifi.

Its not like paying for good WiFi will bankrupt them.

Exclusivity clause in the contract possibly. They could buy out the rest of the contract, but that could be quite expensive (and the other party is under no obligation to agree unless there is already an option defined in said contract).

Even if the WiFi exclusivity is not explicitly stated there might be a clause about the hotel ensuring there is minimal interference with the service and setting up another set of APs on the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands could be claimed to breach that clause if the provider wanted to get litigious.

For chain hotels it is even harder as the decision of who to use to provide the service could be out of their hands.

What kind of dumbmass businessman signs such a contract? No matter the price, the contract should have included "responsibility to meet customer expected speeds and availability of the wifi service provided". And then cut the contract because they arent in fact providing a usable wifi.

I think its just a bullshit excuse to keep paying very little while not giving a crap about their customers - since they got the 4 or 5 star rating anyway.

This website is great - I will use it.

I'm surprised that many business people sign bad contracts, but it happens a lot especially with long term contracts like these.

So it's in the terms.

I considered replying to that comment stating how I would write the telco's legal department to get them to release this provision but to be honest given the way lawyers feel they need to represent their companies the answer would probably be, "no."

I would say words to the effect of: 'this is a historical provision from a time when it was unclear what pace the Internet would be adopted, by buying into such a long contract early, we supplied (telco) with much-needed sales commitment which thanks to early adopters like us is part of why your company (telco) was able to take an early lead in deploying out (infrastructure). At that time nobody could have guessed the speed with which infrastructure would be deployed, and unfortunately the speed we have contractually bought into no longer serves our customers. For some context, visiting executives have actually resorted to visiting the reception area of the fleabag inn down the street, where they even have hostel "dorm-style" rooms (6 beds to a room), and probably pay around $79.95/month for their 100 megabit package simply due to how late they were able to deploy. This reflects very poorly on us, and we have had to make various excuses, but of course never giving (telco's) name, as the guests might not have all of the above context. As we are materially affected in our business by some of these experiences, however, we have had to review our possibilities. We believe in the contract with (telco) and agree that its financial terms are valid, made sense at the time, and we are happy to honor it until its expiration. However, one clause in particular prevents us from pursuing unrelated mitigation. A good technical solution would be to offer a parallel, current solution, while continuing to pay the full terms of our contract with you. What is preventing us is, specifically, clause 7.6 of the attached contract, that states we are obliged not to offer a parallel service to our guests. We'd like your permission to be relieved of this requirement, as it is becoming an unconscionable burden, but does not impact you financially in any way. I am sure you agree that (telco) would not pursue legal action for doing the absolute minimum we can to service business customers, and in fact as we agree with and understand our contract we are happy to continue to make payments on it during the full term. We would simply like to be able to augment the level of service we had agreed, which no longer lets us compete effectively, and seek your permission to do so whilst honoring the full payment and other terms of our contract with you. Thank you for your attention."

To be honest I couldn't think of a way to do that so that a corporate lawyer would say, "sure." Well, the above is worth a shot anyway.

Seriously, to include "no parallel service" in a contract but also not to include "contract is invalid when or if telco does not keep up the speed, availability and reliability to the following requirements X and Y and Blah". Requirements such as "to provide a stable connectin with throughput X% of latest wifi standard after at least 6 months and latency Y to Z*1.2 amount of rooms.".

Sure, a hotel can mess it up, and us as guests can mess up as well and happen upon a 4 or 5 star hotel that costs a leg and doesnt have wifi. This website/application we will mess up less.