At Wi-Fi Networking News, Glenn Fleishman reports on HotelChatter's ratings of the world's best and worst Wi-Fi hotels.

HotelChatter's Best Wi-Fi Hotels include Kimpton Hotels, where "friendly staffers went out of their way to ask us if we were getting a good reliable Wi-Fi signal in both the lobby and our room," and Omni Hotels, which the site calls the "grandaddy of free hotel lobby Wi-Fi."

The Worst Wi-Fi Hotels include marriott, where "you need a PhD to comprehend the Internet policies at some of their flagship hotels," and Four Seasons Hotels, which "charge their guests $10 for lobby Wi-Fi access and another $10 for in-room broadband access."

But the real fun comes in the reader-submitted "Wi-Fi Hell" stories, like this one about Las Vegas' MGM Grand: "The hotel's service regularly kicked me off (about 3 to 4 times a day), requiring me to sign on again each time, agreeing to the terms of service, etc. When I checked out on Friday, I scanned my bill and noticed that I
had been charged each time I had signed on. At about $13 a pop, the numbers tended to add up pretty quickly."

Fleishman also picks up on some other hotel Wi-Fi stories, such as Ben Hammersley's report of a £480-a-day rate at London's Victoria Park Plaza Hotel (£10 for 30 minutes). As Hammersley puts it oh-so-delicately, "I believe that's the hotel equivalent of 'Hi! Fuck you!'"

And at Silicon.com, Peter Cochrane describes how, by threatening to pack up and leave, he persuaded the management at an unnamed hotel to reduce their rate for Wi-Fi access from £20 a day to... £0 a day.