Why is free WiFi at some businesses so poor?

[raccoon]

I stayed at a motel recently and the Wi-Fi was so poor it wouldn’t connect to any of the sites that I usually connect to such as DU.

Also recently at a restaurant I connected to the Wi-Fi, filled out a survey on my phone about something unrelated, and the iPhone just sat there clicking forever. What gives? If the free Wi-Fi so crappy why have it?

[Dagstead Bumwood]

1. Not sure, but

the wife was traveling recently, staying at two hotels in adjoining states, and she had the very same complaint.

As for me, if the sheets look clean and they have a waffle maker on the breakfast bar, I'm good to go.

[Major Nikon]

2. Too many people using too much bandwidth

[customerserviceguy]

3. Bingo

A lot of times, a cheap-ass motel will have maybe even a DSL line to serve dozens of rooms. I always use my phone as a hotspot for my laptop when travelling, if I can get a good strong signal. If not, I just go without. A night off of the Internet won't kill me.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. I was at a hotel in the Ukrainian mountains.

I never knew the value of WiFi until I flew overseas.

The WiFi in my room was practically non-existent.

I then walked 50 feet over to the hotel’s restaurant and it worked perfectly.

Didn’t help after the restaurant was closed. Worst part was I had forgotten to take the novel I was reading and our television didn’t work. So all I had to entertain me was a Ukrainian translation book.

[hlthe2b]

5. Crappy routers and too little bandwidth for the traffic. Not complicated.

[Polybius]

6. I'm fine with restaurants not having it at all

[HacknWack]

7. Bad WIFI

When you get free Wifi the company has several protections they must insert.
Most important is to secure their own segment of the network from the Freebie segment.
They must also monitor all use on the free segment as well as the corporate.
Then they often need to secure the free Wifi from dangers like malware, spyware, ransomware, and known hacking/dark sites.
Then they most often limit the free Wifi to a low bandwidth.
The free 'net you get is always a small piece of a large corporate network.
There's also the consideration of where the nearest access point is from the place you get free access,
It's often very busy with dozens or hundreds of other companies doing the same.

There's a lot going on in free access but all in all it's free so they don't set up high bandwidth.

Hope this puts a bit of clarity for you racoon

[raccoon]

8. Thank you, everybody, for your input. NT