Sydney hotels with WiFi/wired Internet?

[Kati Compton]

I'm making a trip and having a ***** of a time finding a reasonably-priced hotel in Sydney that has wifi or wired internet. Anyone been there lately (or from there) that has any tips?

There's an awful lot of "fast internet" advertised that is just an additional phone jack.

I really need in-room non-dialup internet (even for a fee).

[Darius Wey]

Are you looking to stay in the CBD?

I think Stamford at Circular Quay has WLAN enabled, although I'm not too sure about their pricing.

There's quite a few other hotels that are WLAN enabled but aren't in the CBD. Otherwise, you will find that a lot of the CBD is WLAN enabled so you can go wardriving if you're up for it.

This may sound overkill but you can always see if you can get some kind of access to Sydney's "Unwired" wireless ADSL network covering over 90% of the city. 8) But that is an overkill last-resort plan of action.

Sorry though, I haven't been to Sydney in 1 and a half years, and I wasn't looking for WLAN access in hotels then. I was mainly accessing public networks around the city.

[Darius Wey]

I just realised you were querying wired internet access as well. There are a huge number of hotels in the CBD that have access via a wired interface (you are talking about CAT cables right?). Again, I don't have a list of all the hotels that have it but you can always go Googling. That's probably the best option at the moment, until someone from Sydney can hopefully help you out. :D

[Mr. PPC]

This site may help:

http://www.wi-fihotspotlist.com/browse/au/1900002/

As for wired access, I am not sure which hotels have what. It should be listed on their web sites (business service possibly). A simple e-mail to the hotel will get you an answer and possibly a pointer to a hotel that does have it (if they don't).

[Kati Compton]

Yeah - I've been Googling and emailing hotels. What's difficult is the lack of specific information. "High Speed Internet Access" usually means dial-up internet. They just let you have the full 56K. Sigh. Dataport also usually means dialup. A number of the hotels with broadband just have the TV+keyboard interface, which is insufficient, especially without Java support.

[disconnected]

I've never been there, so my first response is pure envy..... Moving on from that, I checked the Marriott home page and looked for Sydney hotels. They have two in the center city, and both show that the rooms have high-speed internet access. In my experience, admittedly only in the US, Marriott only uses that term for ethernet. One of the two hotels actually specifies that it's supplied by STSN.

[Mr. PPC]

Give me the names (numbers if you already have) of the Hotels you are interested in and I'll call them today for you and let you know what I find out.

[Kati Compton]

I've never been there, so my first response is pure envy..... Moving on from that, I checked the Marriott home page and looked for Sydney hotels. They have two in the center city, and both show that the rooms have high-speed internet access. In my experience, admittedly only in the US, Marriott only uses that term for ethernet. One of the two hotels actually specifies that it's supplied by STSN.
I caught that one, but it had rates far more expensive than I'm allowed to pay. I have a $132/night limit on hotel.

The best I've found is the Holiday Inn at Darling Harbour for about US$120/night, maybe a little less. It has ethernet, AUD$1.60 per 3 mins for a max of AUD$29/day.

[Kati Compton]

Give me the names (numbers if you already have) of the Hotels you are interested in and I'll call them today for you and let you know what I find out.
I appreciate the offer - hotels have been pretty responsive by email, though. At this point, the Holiday Inn seems the way to go for "not too expensive" and "in room non-tv non-dialup internet".

If you have any alternate suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them.

I also called a travel agent, and they weren't any help. ;)

[blusparkles]

The only other thing I can think of using wireless hotspots - Xone has a list of them here (http://www.thexone.com.au/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=64)