I'm in Karlsruhe for a day, staying at the Queens Hotel, with its amazingly boring architecture. I picked it because its additional comfort is only moderately more expensive than the old-fashioned, family-run three-star house I'd normally have chosen, and because there is Wi-Fi in the rooms.
Or so I thought: The Wi-Fi here is actually operated by Swisscom Eurospot. Unfortunately, the server certificate used by the provider is issued by ipsca.com, a CA that is unknown to my recently updated Mozilla 1.7 -- so, as far as I'm concerned, this could just be a spoof designed to get my credit card information. (And yes, such a spoof is entirely feasible, since all it takes is an access point and a laptop.)
But, just as bad, the pricing structure: The smallest unit of Internet access one can purchase here is half an hour for 4.50¤; two hours cost 9.50¤. The clock for these "packages" starts ticking when they are used initially. So downloading your e-mail, writing answers offline, and sending them easily costs 9¤ for two 1/2h vouchers, or 9.50¤ for two full hours.
This is too high a price for my taste. So, I'm back to GPRS for now -- here, that's actually less expensive (and less risky!) than Wi-Fi.
I'm looking forward for the day when hotels in Europe finally understand the idea behind free Wi-Fi in the room. As far as I'm concerned, if I return to this particular hotel, Wi-Fi won't be the reason...
