Where’s all that cheap access now?

So here I sit at the Premier Travel Inn in London UK. Let me tell you how the Internet works here. They charge three quid (about $5.66 US) for an access card that gives you a username/password.

However, it’s only good for one log-in session, maximum two hours long. Normally, the way I use the net when travelling is I log on every once in a while, check a few messages, and unless there is some crisis to avert, I sign off. In thiis case, each time I want to do that, I’d have to drop another 3 quid for another access card.

What’s equally unusual is that nobody seems to mind. This is an updated hotel, clean, etc. full of what appear to be business people. The front desk personnel act like they’ve never heard of this strange thing I call “the Internet”.

I would not be quite so annoyed by this, if it were not for many of my Brit friends who constantly brag about how good they have it over here, with three fiber options to their house, unblundling and unlimited choices for broadband providers and telephony services, and multi-gigabit connections for mere pennies per month (okay, I made that last one up).

Because of all that, I completely ASSUMED I would have easy access to the net here and as a result violated all the rules of a good Boy Scout, and came illprepared. It’s amazing how “out of touch” one feels with no net connection these days. I had no paper maps, few phone numbers, etc. My N70 phone feels like my only connection to the outside world. Digital isolation. How pathetic would that sound to our grand-parents’ generation?

Anyway, I need to end this, because my Internet connection is about to run out.