A recent trend that we have been seeing is for hotels that are not already wired for ethernet to join the high speed access club by adding a wireless network. At the Guanahani in St. Barts, you could get either one. Many older hotels and resorts with extensive grounds are settling for wireless only networks, while the ones that jumped early onto the ethernet bandwagon are often slow to add wireless to their offerings.

The power combo that we see being the ideal travel companions are the LinkSys router that Vonage gives you free for subscribing and the 3Com OfficeConnect wireless router. The LinkSys router can be used to connect to a hard wired network connection, and the 3Com goes nicely into one its ports to turn your hotel room wireless for those properties that don’t have it. For those properties that only supply wireless, the 3Com seems to be the only player in the market that offers a "client" mode that will connect to a wireless network and allow your LinkSys router to provide VoIP services even without a hardwired connection!

We can’t wait to try out this combo on our next trip.