BT Openzone may not work with Linux-based Intel Centrino systems

It’s Saturday afternoon, the sun is shining, and I’m in my den, blogging. Which makes me a bit of a saddo.

Actually, I’m just posting items that I wrote in my hotel a couple of nights back… and I’ll soon get back to doing something more wholesome with my weekend. You see, normally I like to stay at Hilton hotels because:

• In my experience, the rooms are comfortable, with a contemporary décor.
• The staff deliver great customer service (something that is increasingly rare to find in the UK).
• I can get a reliable high-speed Internet connection in my room.

Sure, the iBahn Internet connection is pretty expensive (£15 for 24 hours) but if I’m working late into the evening for nothing more that the price of a broadband connection, then I figure that the company is getting value for money. In fact, it’s not unusual for me to work at the hotel the next morning too, because the connection is faster than the one I use at work!

Unfortunately, last Thursday night, the Internet connection in my room wasn’t working, so I tried the BT Openzone hotspot instead. After repeatly trying to connect, I eventually got a connection but lost it before I even had the chance to pay. Eventually, I gave up, figuring that there must be something up with my Wi-Fi stack. Later, I googled “BT Openzone Linux” and found that:

“Some hotspots may not support Linux-based Intel Centrino mobile technology systems”

[buried deep within a BT press release]

Thanks (for nothing) BT. IEEE 802.11b/g access shouldn’t care about my choice of operating system!