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Have you seen the commercial where a businessman is rushing to get home because he doesn’t want to miss bath time? As the commercial progresses we’re relieved to learn that the bath isn’t actually for him but is instead for his two young daughters. We also learn that “home” is actually a Courtyard by Marriott where he watches his wife giving the kids a bath via video chat on his laptop. Aww. Home away from home thanks to Courtyard by Marriott.

This week I’m staying at the Courtyard by Marriott at 530 Broadway Street in downtown San Diego, California. Last night I used my MacBook Pro to share a ten minute video chat with my mother who’s at home in Pittsburgh. The purpose of our quick chat is irrelevant to the story, but I promise it had nothing to do with a bathtub.

Shortly after our video chat ended I noticed that my Internet connection stopped working. I could no longer send emails or load any web sites. Thinking nothing of it I fell asleep and figured I would try again in the morning.

I woke up this morning to discover that my Internet connection was still down. The desk in my hotel room contains a business card indicating that if I experience Internet connection problems I should get in touch with Wayport at 1-877-WAYPORT. After a short minute of hitting the requisite ones and twos to get a person on the other end I detailed my problem to a human named John. After putting me on hold for a minute or two John broke down the bad news: I was banned from Internet access for violating the terms of service. John asked me if I had been using any peer-to-peer applications such as LimeWire. I told him that although I felt it wasn’t any of his business what I use my Internet connection for, I had not been using any peer-to-peer applications.

John then asked if I had been using any other high bandwidth applications. I told John about my ten minute video chat with my mother and he said, “that would do it.”

You can see where this is going.

Courtyard by Marriott advertises that you can use their Internet connections for video chat but they block you if you do.

I asked John why I hadn’t been notified that I had been blocked. Apparently if you violate their terms of service they just block your access and leave it up to you to figure out what happened. Without notification, and without first throttling your connection, Marriott’s ISP will abruptly pull the plug for using their service as advertised in their own television commercials.

In the last twelve months I’ve spent over seventy five nights and more than $10,000 at Marriott brand hotels. That’s more than one out of every five nights that I sleep in a Marriott bed, eat Marriott food and get my work done thanks to a Marriott provided Internet connection. I travel around North America from Vancouver to Boston making a living in the technology industry. Messing with my Internet connection isn’t just depriving me of the latest YouTube antics. Shutting off my Internet access is shutting me off from my customers and shutting me off from the world.

John said that he’d put in a request to have my connection restored and that I should be up and running within fifteen minutes. Forty-five minutes later I’m back on the phone with Wayport inquiring about the status of my still-not-working Internet connection. I was losing patience, losing money and beginning to lose my temper.

I forget the name of this second gentleman I spoke to, but let’s just call him Dick.

Dick tells me that restoring my Internet connection is a low priority for them because they assign a higher level of importance to customers who haven’t violated their terms of service. (Apparently I now have a record with Wayport.) I asked Dick how I can prevent this from happening again. Dick responds, “The only way to prevent this from happening again is to ensure that you don’t exceed the bandwidth limits.” I asked Dick what the bandwidth limits are and he told me that they vary based on the time of the day. I asked, “What were the bandwidth limits last night at 10:00PM and what are they now?” His response was, “I cannot share that information with you.”

Let’s review:

1. Marriott advertises that you can use their Internet connections for video chat.
2. I use their Internet connection for video chat.
3. My Internet service is shutdown for exceeding bandwidth limitations due to ten minutes of video chat.
4. I ask what the bandwidth limitations are.
5. I’m told that I’m not allowed to know the limitations, only that I broke them.

This would be like a police officer taking away your keys for speeding on a highway without a posted speed limit. “But officer, what’s the speed limit on this road?” “I’m not allowed to tell you that ma’am, but I will impound your vehicle.”

I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with the Marriott brand until now and it’s unfortunate that their relationship with Wayport has tarnished their image in my eyes. How should Marriott and Wayport learn from this? Here are my suggestions:

1. Don’t advertise video chat if you’re not going to allow your customers do it.
2. Increase your bandwidth limitations. This isn’t 1994. Sometimes when I’m on the road I need to download 700 megabyte ISOs. If you cater to business customers then you need to cater to their broadband needs.
3. Advertise the rules. Don’t tell me I broke a rule without telling me what the rule is. This is something I would expect from a corrupt dictatorship government regime, not a company that I was previously loyal to.
4. Don’t pull the plug on high bandwidth customers. At the very least you should throttle their connections instead.

Since writing this blog entry I’ve been contacted by a couple of people with Wayport assuring me that this was a rare event and that measures are being taken to prevent this from happening again. I am very pleased with Wayport’s response to this matter.