HotelChatter offers its best, worst Wi-Fi hotels, while one commentator badgers £20 pounds to zero pence: A lot of buzz in the last few days about clueless and clueful hotels and hotel chains, including the £480 a day rate at one hotel for conference attendees (£10 for 30 minutes), and Peter Cochrane's Silicon.com commentary on beating free Wi-Fi out of a hotel. (It's a good story. He's a fairly high-end consultant, and was irritated to discover that his expensive hotel demanded £20 a day for Internet access. He threatened to change hotels, and magically the rate dropped to £0. He maintains that dropping EU politeness for American forthrightness helped.)

HotelChatter published their summary of top hotels and chains for Wi-Fi--and the worst offenders for access, too. Among the best, Kimpton ranks tops for their efforts to provide high-quality Wi-Fi and for the staff's general enthusiasm and interest in making sure guests get a signal that works. Omni receives a nod for its free lobby Wi-Fi, and the hotel chain's apparent effort to encourage visitors to use the lobby. A few high-end properties receive kudos, but Holiday Inn Express and Marriott Residence Inn are singled out for good access and free service.

The worst, which makes better reading, starts off with Marriott Flagship because of its inconsistent pricing with plans for the lobby and upstairs having separate components. The Kor Hotel Group and the W Hotel are excoriated for their charges, varied pricing, and separate lobby/room charges. And W has only wired in-room service. The W needs better chain-wide understanding of access, too, HotelChatter reports: "For instance, we called the W's 1-800 number to inquire about which properties have wireless. The kind woman on the other end informed us that all of the hotels have wireless in the rooms and in the lobbies. Hmm. We knew this wasn't true, but we gave W a mulligan."