So that is why German hotels have such expensive WIFI
 

Finally I understand why I cannot get free wifi in German Hotels, it's the ambulance chasers!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-1...ree-wi-fi.html

Good to see Merkel is looking into changing that.

That being said, over the past year I have noticed several places with "free" WiFi for customers.

I seem to remember having no trouble in an Accor hotel in Berlin, as compared with a poor signal at 5euro a day in much more upmarket hotels in Munich - and that's got nothing to do with legal liabilities for what I might be doing on the internet.

Wi-Fi providers like Oberholz are targeted by lawyers asking them to stop any such activity and pay the legal fees for those filing the complaints. The costs can add up to thousands of euros. Choosing to ignore the letters opens up the possibility of eventually being sued>>

lol - it's the lawyers' fault again, not that of their greedy clients.

anyway, I'm not sure that i follow the logic - are the hotels/cafes not just as liable under this law for their customers who log in as for the ones who don't? perhaps I'm being dim but I don't get how charging customers for the privilege of going on line makes any difference to their legal liability.

If you charge a customer then if they were engaging in illegal activity, then it's possible to identify them. That's my guess.

well you might be able to identify them, but what are you going to do with that information? I don't see these "ambulance chasers" suing every customer who downloads something a bit dodgy - for one thing they have no idea whether they are "men of straw" or not.

on our recent trip to Germany, we had free wifi everywhere, but we had to log in. Ditto at my local Waitrose, Costa, etc etc. What's wrong with that? Charging seems to me to be a completely separate issue and the cost appears to be in inverse proportion to the expense of staying in the establishment.

Well said, annhig! My experience also.

I had free wi-fi when I was in German hotels earlier this month and had it when I was in German hotels this past summer, also.

I don't mind logging in, but what I do find difficult is filling in a form with all sorts of different information on the tiny screen on my smart phone.

Perhaps it's my stubby fingers.

<i>I don't see these "ambulance chasers" suing every customer who downloads something a bit dodgy - for one thing they have no idea whether they are "men of straw" or not. </i>

I know a handful of people who were sent letters because they were "caught" downloading copyrighted material.

It seems to be a bit of a cottage industry: copyright holders "monitor traffic" and then sic lawyers after the infringers and demand 1200 Euro in damages. The accused then hire lawyers who specialize in making the allegations ago away, for a fee of course (250-500 Euro).

Perhaps it's my stubby fingers.>>


chartley, I think that they make phones now with specially big buttons for the digitally challenged.

Yup, like others above, I got free wifi at the Hotel Ratsstuben in Lindau last week. I only had to log in daily.

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I'm with Chartley, some of the tools like Amazon's doodgamaflip are very tricky to load the nonsense in.

I've had free in Germany but also vrey expensive poor reception

I don't mind logging in, but I do object to having to provide a lot of personal information in order to use free WiFi, something very common in the UK it seems, especially in cafés and supermarkets.
No experience of WiFi in Germany, but in France we have found the more expensive the hotel the more they charge.
In the US one hotel would allow only one device per room which was frustrating. We had a few with no WiFi, one charged $6 a day, the rest were free, even the satellite internet, slow as it was.

one of the selling points of Best Western hotels, even the priciest like the one in Weimar, is that they all offer free wifi.

in Aus we struggled to find free wifi in hotels; OTOH you could log on for free in the middle of the river in Brisbane while you were on the ferry. Ditto in Sydney.

All Waitrose want is your mobile phone no, which I'm happy to provide.

The expensive, business hotels all charge for wifi cause they know their customers can afford it.

Once people stopped making phone calls using the hotel phones, the hotels lost a huge source of income. Making people pay for wifi is a way for them to make money, lots of money. Most budget friendly hotels will offer free wifi as an added attraction or amenity. So, next time you are in Germany, stay at the 3* or 4* hotels instead of the 5* and I bet you will get free wifi. I don't know a single 5* hotel in Frankfurt that offers free wifi. Heck, even hostels offer free wifi.

No experience of WiFi in Germany, but in France we have found the more expensive the hotel the more they charge.>>

I think that's true in a lot of countries. It is in the US. I don't know why, I gather they figure if you can afford their hotel, you won't blink at paying for Wifi. Same reason a lot of 4* hotels won't even give you a minibar or coffeepot, but lesser ones will.

If you use the hotel search site: HRS.Com, they will identify how much the hotel charges for WIFI (WLAN) and whether is it available in your room or the lobby. We usually get free WIFI; we stay in budget hotels. Jo probably has a point about it costing more in upscale hotels.