More and more restaurants and hotels are providing wifi (sometimes free, sometimes paid) which is great, but what happens when the service is not working? Are you entitled to a refund or a discount?

In many cases I select a hotel or restaurant purely because they offer wifi and expect the service to be working. In most hotels I am paying for the service (read Elizabeth's The Scandal of Hotel Internet Access). If the service is not working then I don't pay, simple enough, but the issue goes farther. I selected the hotel because they offered wifi, sometimes paying slightly more than another hotel because they offer high-speed access. If I had known the service was not working I wouldn't have chosen that hotel.

With regard to restaurants I have had similar issues. Earlier this week in Atlanta I went to a restaurant that advertised free wifi. I bought my food, sat down and opened up the PowerBook. I quickly joined the access point, but could not get anywhere online. I walked to the counter and asked the manager on duty and his response was, "oh yeah, it's been down for the past two days." Had I known that I would have gone to another restaurant in the same plaza that also offers wifi. Recently I catch myself looking around a restaurant to see if those using laptops are browsing the web (In the case mentioned above there were a few people using laptops in the restaurant, but none of them were online)

Perhaps hotels and restaurants should have a sign that says 'Wifi - Working/Not Working" posted at their entrance.