More hotels are offering fast Internet access                 
               (Milwaukee Sentinel & Journal; 05/10/99)               

   For the typical business traveler these days, one who carries a laptop  
computer on an overnight trip, trying to use the machine can be frustrating.

   While most hotel rooms provide dataports on telephones, you may have to  pay 
for a long and expensive local or long-distance phone call to connect  to the 
Internet or your company's e-mail system. More annoying is the slow  speed at 
which you have to download data or answer important messages over  standard 
phone lines.

   To solve the problem and to market themselves, hotels ranging from
 luxury to mid-priced are installing the technology needed to offer lightning-
speed Internet access. Other major full-service chains are shopping for ways to 
reduce access time.

   Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Hotel says it's the first luxury lodging  in the 
country to have the highest-speed technology up and running. The  98-room 
hotel, which caters to business executives, celebrities and  well-heeled 
leisure travelers, struck a deal with SiteLine L.P., a  Philadelphia company 
selling a service named AccessReady.

   AccessReady uses a building's existing phone wires to connect  to a T-1 
line, among the fastest ways available to get on the Net.

   AccessReady was installed free at the Rittenhouse to help promote the 
product, hotel general manager David Benton said. The hotel is putting its in-
room dataports in the base of desk lamps in each room.

   The Rittenhouse charges guests $19.95 for a 24-hour period to use the  
service. A guest has to tap into the service once during a stay and it's  
available instantly until checkout.

   Gary B. Arlen, president of Bethesda, Md.-based Arlen Communications,  an 
online industry consulting firm, said the Rittenhouse announcement puts  it 
among a handful of hotel companies upgrading their online services.

   Hilton Hotels Corp. and Wingate Inns, a 65-hotel chain of mid-priced  
lodgings, are among the other companies that have said they will sharply  boost 
the speed of Internet access.    Hilton said it will wire its major convention 
hotels in Chicago,  Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington first, 
then  steadily expand the service to larger hotels in other cities. Hilton  has 
bought a system called OverVoice, developed by CAIS Internet  of Washington, 
D.C., and will charge guests an extra $10 a night  for a room equipped with 
OverVoice.

   Wingate, a unit of Cendant Corp., plans to have high-speed service
 available at all its hotels.

   Other companies that have installed high-speed systems for testing in  some 
of their hotels include Hyatt, Marriott, Promus, Radisson and Starwood.

   Two major airlines say they're enhancing their onboard video and audio  
entertainment on long-haul airplanes.

   US Airways said starting this month its trans-Atlantic flights will offer 
EuroNews, a European news and information channel broadcast in  five languages. 
Also starting this month, passengers can watch a History  Channel 15-part 
series hosted by Peter Jennings that looks at the  United States over the last 
100 years.

   US Airways also said it chose a video system by Sony that will be installed 
in every seat on new Airbus A330 jets the airline has ordered.  With a personal 
video screen at every seat, passengers can pick what they  want to watch from a 
library of movies and audio programs and will be able  to start and stop 
programs. The airline has seven of the European-built  wide-bodied jets on 
order for 2000 and 2001.

   TWA said it has added a touch-screen, cassette-based entertainment
 system called Up Front Video to its Trans World One business class cabin.  
Passengers use their own screen on a swivel arm to watch a choice of  12 
movies. Passengers can start and stop the video.

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