Mobile Computing: Highs and Lows at the High-Tech Hotel

Feature: High-Tech Hotels

Though he has all but vanished from movie screens lately, actor Val Kilmer refused to vanish from my TV screen. I pushed this button on the remote, I pushed that button, and still, there was Val, frozen in place.

I dialed the hotel operator. "The KoolConnect system in my room is stuck," I explained. I was spending the night in room 513 at the Westin San Francisco Airport. My purpose: to test one of the hotel's state-of-the-art rooms. Last year, the hotel was one of two Westins (the other is in Fort Lauderdale) to install KoolConnect on a trial basis.

KoolConnect is an in-room entertainment system from KoolConnect Technologies that delivers video on demand with VCR-like controls, games, and other interactive content to TV sets. What's more, KoolConnect offers the ability to check e-mail and surf the Web right from the hotel TV via a high-speed connection. Hotel guests can take care of business and pleasure with one in-room service. I found KoolConnect to be a concept cool indeed--but the execution, at least at the Westin San Francisco Airport, left me cold.

Ready for Prime Time?

A maintenance worker arrived, pushed the reset button on the back of the KoolConnect box (which sits on top of the TV, like a tiny cable converter box), and rebooted the system. I wasn't the first to experience this problem, he said. In fact, the hotel would be removing the KoolConnect system next week, he added.

The hotel management later confirmed his report. KoolConnect was removed from the hotel less than a week after my visit, according to Tim Lusher, general manager. Screen freezes like as the one I experienced, along with dropped Web access, had been persistent problems, he explained. KoolConnect had been installed in four of the Westin San Francisco Airport's 440 rooms in May 2002. Eventually installed in 24 rooms, the KoolConnect service was still considered to be in testing phase when it was removed, Lusher said.

By comparison, the Westin Fort Lauderdale currently offers KoolConnect in all 293 rooms. Installed in September 2002, the service has been popular and largely without problems, according to a management executive who asked not to be identified.

KoolConnect spokesperson Christopher Wild couldn't comment on the Westin San Francisco Airport's service problems because he hadn't heard about them. The service is currently installed in seven hotels, including a Holiday Inn in Kansas City, with no significant problems reported, Wild says. The company was on course to have approximately 20,000 hotel rooms wired with KoolConnect by sometime this year, he added.

The Good News

In addition to KoolConnect, my room came equipped with a broadband Internet connection, to which guests can connect using a notebook's Ethernet port. This service, called TurboNet, is accessed via a router located on the hotel room desk and is a separate offering from KoolConnect. As I tested it, I was able to connect and receive e-mail effortlessly, but couldn't send messages. The maintenance man suggested I reboot. I followed his advice, and after restarting my computer, my e-mail messages were released at last into the ether. From that point, I had no more trouble sending e-mail, and my Internet connection remained reliable though at times a tad slow.

Like KoolConnect, the Westin San Francisco Airport's broadband Internet access service is also in testing phase, the maintenance man reminded me. The start-up screen, when I first logged on, said the service was a trial and, as such, was being offered free to guests.

As for KoolConnect, I resumed browsing the video-on-demand choices and watched several previews. (The Adventures of Pluto Nash--what was Eddie Murphy thinking?) New releases are $12.95; older movies, $5.95. From the latter category, I selected The Accidental Tourist, a 1988 drama with William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. The movie played flawlessly, and using the remote control, I paused it for a trip to the bathroom. Halfway through I bookmarked my place and picked up where I left off the next morning. (Hotel satellite TV services, by comparison, generally show movies at appointed times and provide no VCR-like controls.)

Once I'd finally gotten rid of Val Kilmer, I found KoolConnect to be, well, cool. For business travelers, tourists, or anyone staying in a hotel, the ability to watch what you want, when you want, is a terrific way to unwind. And the ability to check e-mail and surf the Web is an attractive alternative to lugging a notebook.

Also, it should be noted that video on demand is still a new technology, just now beginning to show up in hotels and cable systems. As such, technical snafus are to be expected and are likely to be resolved in time.

For more information on Westin properties. And to search for hotels with high-speed Internet connections, try Expedia.com.