I’m going out of town and staying in a hotel with free internet access. I’m bringing my MacBook. I’ve never done this before and it occurs to me - do I just open up my laptop, sign on as usual, and that’s it? Or … what, is anything else involved?
Signed,
Duh
Usually the hotel will have a card in the room that tells you what to do. Commonly you need to attach to the SSID they give you, with a password (that they change regularly). Once in they put up a web page that you have to Agree to they conditions of usage (no child porn etc), then you’re good to go.
Beware; Some hotels charge outrageous daily fees for wifi access.
The OP did say “a hotel with free internet access.” …
Is it ever really free? More like “hotel with internet access included as part of the price of the room”. 
(Yeah I know I’m needlessly nitpicking. I’m bored)
If it’s free no-strings-attached, then it will work just like your home WiFi works. Your computer will automatically find it, and connect (if no password required). No muss, no fuss.
When there’s a fee, login, or some other jazz required first, then when you open your browser, no matter what URL you put in you will be redirected to the hotel’s greeting site telling you how to get access.
Yep, if they don’t put any security on it at all. When I was in Monterey, there was a Dennys downtown where I could get onto the wifi from a nearby hotel 
Usually, in my experience, there’s a password that may or may not be based on your room number. The front desk person should tell you what you need to know.
I just returned from a week in Oregon, 4 days in Seaside and 3 in Portland. Both hotels offered free wifi and it was as simple as you state. Turn on the computer, logon to their network and your online. Both hotels gave me the logon info when I checked in. Just be aware the networks have zero security, that is all up to you.
Unsecured wireless? Blasphemy!
Actually I don’t want to derail the thread but that brings up a question I have been wondering about but didn’t want to start a new thread over. Let’s say you’re on an unsecured wireless connection and you decide you want to connect to your bank account (which of course uses encryption and https and all that). Is it secure because of the encryption steps on their end or are you still entering dangerous territory?
I think you’d still be vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack. (Someone who knows more about network security than I do should feel free to correct me, though.)
The second paragraph seems to say that SSL is designed to prevent such an attack:
As far as I know most banks use SSL.
If a website uses HTTPS, the underlying WiFi security becomes irrelevant. If you’re going to https://www.yourbank.com and you don’t see any security warnings, an unprotected hotspot would be no less (or more) secure than a protected one. The HTTPS makes WiFi encryption like WEP and WPA irrelevant.
While there ARE MITM attacks for HTTPS, they are orders of magnitude more difficult to execute, usually involving certificate wrangling… and they could equally affect protected and unprotected hotspots.
WiFi encryption only protects you from people outside your network (in other words, all the other hotel guests can likely see your traffic with the right programs).
HTTPS and other forms of public-key encryption (like VPNs) were designed to protect you from the whole freaking world except your specific recipient, no matter how insecure the underlying network is.
Could you trust your life to it if you were a spy? I have no idea; the math behind it all boggles me and perhaps the NSA has Soviet zombies on staff who can factor googalesque primes in their heads quicker than you can count change.
But could you trust everyday banking to it through a insecure hotel hotspot? Absolutely – especially if your bank has a zero-liability policy for unauthorized transactions, which many (most?) do now.
Quite often when you first try to go to the net, you will be redirected to a page that asks you to agree to the Wi-Fi providers terms of service. Once you agree to that, you might be sent to the hotel’s home page or directly to your original destination.
HINT
If you are trying to connect to a VPN, go to a public website (like CNN.com) first so you get the redirect, and agree to the TOS. Sometimes going to a VPN first defeats the redirect, no agreement and no internet (ask me how I know this.)
Good to know. Thanks, Reply.
Usually there are multiple access points with SSIDs like Hotel1, Hotel2, Hotel3. I think this is because a single access point doesn’t have the range to cover the entire hotel, so you pick the one with the strongest signal. In my experience, you’ll also find other SSIDs that are not associated with the hotel - I always avoid these. I don’t know if I’m being any more secure that way, but that’s me.
Also, about half of the hotels I’ve been in with wireless also have wired connections in the room even if it wasn’t advertised. Most of the time it was better, or at least easier, to use the wired connection if I could. You might want to take a network cable.
Oddly, I’ve found it just the opposite. A Comfort Inn that charges $59 a night in the middle of Nebraska will give you wifi for free. A nice but expensive Hilton in a big city will charge you an arm and a leg. We sometimes negotiate free wifi for conference attendees, to deal with this, especially in resorts. The expensive hotels assume they get mostly business travelers who will expense the charge and so won’t care about it.
You sometimes see internal hotel Wifi SSIDs, but I’ve never seen multiple customer SSIDs - except for ones available in a conference center, perhaps.
The desk can usually lend you one if you didn’t bring your own. But it is hard to browse the Dope from your bed this way.
Also, in two hotels in which I recently stayed, there was free wireless internet in the lobby. The wireless internet in the room was $10. a night.
You bet, but that’s just my understanding of it. If I’m wrong, I only hope somebody jumps in to correct it.