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WiFi Travel: Another Workaround to Keep You Online

April 17, 2008 at 11:09 AM | by pbb | 5 Comments

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]

5 Comments

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Return to » WiFi Travel: Another Workaround to Keep You Online

  1. connect king

    Jaunted Member

    Internet while you travel

    I agree, the $15 is pricey, for simply connecting to the internet, particulalry if you are locked to one location. Many hotels in major metro areas charge at least this rate. I stayed at the Hilton New York, and they wanted $16.95, zoinks! Now the $15 isn't so bad, plus I can take it with me. In reality, who sits in their hotel room all day on the internet. most business travelers don't get back to their room until after 6pm and leave first thing inthe morning. if you throw in when they step out for dinner for couple hours, then they probably use the internet all of about 2 hours if their lucky for the $10, but if its on someone else's nickel, who cares.

    I am in the real estate industry, take into consideration all the vacation rental homes and timeshare units with no internet access, this concept at least gives them the option of connecting, although their spouses may not like it. For those that don't want to pay for internet, there are plenty of hotels (all limited service) that give it away. As with anything, there is a cost benefit analysis that people need to do. Most people don't need the internet, they want it, just like everything else in this materialistic society.

    April 18, 2008 at 11:38 AM
    #Permalink

  1. pbb

    Jaunted Member

    Good points...

    But I do think it's a little shady that RovAir advertises $6 a day without mentioning you have to rent for an entire month to get that price. Still, if it's between $15 a day for in-room or $15 a day for truly mobile access... you gotta go aircard.
    April 18, 2008 at 12:36 PM
    Parent #Permalink

  1. connect king

    Jaunted Member

    they do say that

    they do indicate for 30 days or more under the 5.95 per day. plus i just went on and priced things out for a number of differnet scenarios from 3 to 30 days once you get over 7 days the cost falls below $12/day
    April 18, 2008 at 1:45 PM
    #Permalink

  1. pbb

    Jaunted Member

    That's new...

    If you check the Google cached version of the RovAir page, you'll see that the disclaimer has been added recently.
    April 18, 2008 at 2:25 PM
    Parent #Permalink

  1. connect king

    Jaunted Member

    I do see that

    must be that they received a lot feedback on that. good to see that they are addressing the concerns
    April 18, 2008 at 3:31 PM
    #Permalink

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