As Web surfers pull the plug, hotels try to tap into the trend

Gary Calamar lives the wireless life at his Los Angeles home and loves it.

With the help of an antenna that broadcasts to his laptop, Calamar, a radio show host, can catch up on e-mail and surf the Internet in any room in the house while minding his 14-month-old daughter.

Having just learned that some hotels offer wireless, he says he would prefer to stay at one that has it -- but he doesn’t want to pay for it.

“It seems like if they put the feature in, it should be free,” he says.

Ready or not -- and ready to pay for it or not -- wireless high-speed Internet access is coming to a hotel near you. It’s the next step in a dizzying tech race that has seen the industry first install laptop plug-ins, then wired high-speed Internet access in guest rooms and, now, wireless.

With wireless access, computer users within a few hundred feet of an antenna can tap into the Internet at speeds many times faster than on dial-up modems. There’s no need to find a hookup. You can surf the Net from your hotel room, lobby or lounge -- anywhere there’s a so-called hot zone or hot spot.

“It provides true freedom,” says Hilton spokesman Tom Wingham, a self-described technophile who has been wireless for two years at his Tarzana home.

That freedom can be addicting. At a conference in Baltimore, Calamar’s colleague Jason Georges, the radio station’s Webmaster, tapped Marriott’s wireless system to send e-mail, check for snafus in his station’s streaming audio and instantly call up Web sites when lecturers mentioned them.

As yet, only a minority of laptop owners have wireless, and its potential uses have barely been explored. But in what online travel expert Jared Blank dubs a “ready, fire, aim strategy,” hotels are installing the technology before they fully know what they will do with it or how they’ll pay for it. “As with any new technology, you’re making a bet,” Blank, a senior analyst at Jupiter Research, says.

In the last few months, Fairmont, Hilton, Starwood, InterContinental, Marriott International and Omni hotels and resorts have rolled out wireless plans or expanded existing ones. Even some independents, such as Seattle’s vintage Mayflower Park Hotel, have jumped in.

This is occurring even though business travelers say a free breakfast and newspaper and many other services are more important to them than wireless access at a hotel, according to surveys by marketing consultants Yesawich, Pepperdine, Brown & Russell in Orlando, Fla., and Yankelovich Partners in Norwalk, Conn. And so far, fewer than 10% of guests even use the current wired high-speed Internet access, some hoteliers say.

But experts say hotels can’t afford not to install wireless.

With business travel down, the struggling lodging industry is loading on amenities to court such customers, who generally spend more per capita than vacationers and generate revenue from meeting-room rentals and other charges. Even the slightest competitive edge is valued.

High-speed Internet access, whether wireless or wired, is one of the services most frequently requested by callers to Marriott’s central reservation number, says Lou Paladeau, vice president of the company’s technology business development. More than 300 Marriotts offer wireless, and 100 more are being added this spring.

Internet technology can be a determining factor in choosing a hotel, Paladeau says. Ken Smith, a Houston-based consultant in travel technology and publisher of the mobile news site www.m-travel.com, says that at a conference of airline reservation specialists he attended in March in Henderson, Nev., “about 400 people came, and about 399 hooked up [to the Internet] in their rooms.”

Wireless can also be an important tool for the “career-focused road warrior” obsessed with productivity, says Henry Harteveldt, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. Another factor: As more people get unplugged at home, they’ll begin to expect wireless on the road too, whether on vacation or business.

Paying for wireless is another matter.

Some hotels offer it free; some charge by the minute or the day. The technology is so new in the industry that “it’s like the Wild West” on fees, says Dennis Koci, senior vice president of operations support for Hilton, which has been charging $1.99 for the first 10 minutes and 10 cents per minute after that, capped at $9.99 per day.

Besides checking into the rates, Smith and others say it’s a good idea for guests to ask whether their hotel offers:

* Wireless in guest rooms, public areas or both. If in your guest room, ask for one with good reception. Walls, metal cabinets and other barriers can interfere with signals.

* A wireless-enabling card to plug into your laptop if you need one. (Some laptops have this feature built in.)

* Round-the-clock tech support. “Wireless systems can be tricky,” Smith says. “For unexplained reasons, you may get different signal strengths at the same spot.”

In time, Koci and some other experts believe, wireless will be a standard free amenity, like TV in your room and continental breakfast in the lobby. Many expect it to be just as ubiquitous.

The new J.W. Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix offers poolside wireless, so you can surf and sun at the same time. At the Hilton Americas-Houston, opening in December next to the convention center, “you will be in a hot zone everywhere,” from guest room to lobby, Koci says.

Will there be nowhere to dodge work? Georges, for one, wonders whether extending work space into relaxation and rest areas is a good thing. On the other hand, wireless can provide an escape from a noisy house or hotel room.

When working at his wireless-equipped home, Georges says, he sometimes takes his laptop to his car just for the quiet when his two children get raucous.

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Jane Engle welcomes comments and suggestions but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.