God knows we hate paying exorbitant WiFi access charges, whether it be at airports or hotels. (We're looking at you, Loews Philadelphia.) But travel troubleshooter Chris Elliott recently tested out a way around the scam of high-priced access, and he gives RovAir pretty high marks.
The company is basically an aircard rental service. Instead of signing yourself up for a two-year cellular broadband account, you can simply rent the cards from RovAir. Sounds great, especially when the company's advertising the service for as little as $6 a day.
But after plugging in some dates, all we could find were pricey $15 a day rentals. So we called RovAir for clarification. Here's the rub: The longer your rental, the cheaper it is. To get a card for $6 a day, you have to rent it for 30 days. That's $180 to use a RovAir aircard for a month.
Of course, mobile access has the benefit of working not just in your hotel room but in the cab, at the airport or in restaurants that don't offer WiFi. But if you'll be spending most of your time at the hotel, all of a sudden that $10 a day charge isn't looking so bad.
Related Stories:
· RovAir [Official Site]
· A Clever Way Around Hotel Wireless Charges [Elliott]
· How to Get Online Anywhere Using Your BlackBerry [Jaunted]
[Photo: Jason Cartwright]]]>