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In the emailed host newsletter today was the idea that “work from anywhere” guests want fast wifi. They suggest doing a speed test and posting the result on your listing. They also provide a link to do so.
I think this is a great idea and it’s one I adopted years ago after it was suggested by someone here. Of course there are multiple naysayers who argue you shouldn’t advertise anything that you have so little control over.
It would be a real pisser if Airbnb suggested a host do this and then refunded a guest who didn’t get the promised speed as some here suggest could happen.
This is a good tip and tool for the less tech savvy hosts who don’t read forums.
I humbly disagree and just sharing my view as one who spent much of my life with networks.
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We have reasonable control that “we provide internet access”. Few of us have the kind of Internet access where one may safely guarantee X Mbps. Even if one is inclined to list a Mbps rating it is prudent to “underpromise and overdeliver”. List it at 10 Mbps, if one is very confident that the guest will get 30, 40, 50, etc.
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If a host were to list 50 Mbps and the guest only gets 25 when they run a test, now we have an easily avoided area of conflict. Perhaps worse, an “included amenity” is not meeting the listing (risk of “what refund are they going to demand”).
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Such a discrepancy can be due to many things like load on the ISP network, maybe the router is acting up and hasn’t been rebooted in a while. Maybe the guest’s device has a crappy wireless chip or driver. Maybe the network has a high load between 5 - 11pm, etc. Maybe “little Jimmy is doing a bittorrent download while daddy is running the test”.
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In short, lots of stuff can affect a mere speed test, especially on a shared wifi network. Air CS Agents often don’t understand their own policies. They sure as heck have no clue about network engineering.
I was thinking the same thing. The is especially true if you are on Xfinity. So many things can effect speed (even ones own computer). It’s just a refund waiting to happen.
Yeah I was warned away from posting my internet speed back in 2017 for the reason of speeds being undependable. I decided to post them anyway my reasoning being that it is available most of the time and if it’s available to guests I’m going to list it. I could go down that road with many of my amenities. What if the power goes out, or the window AC does? All the people with internet based TV service shouldn’t list it as an amenity? That doesn’t make sense. I believe in underpromise and overdeliver but I also don’t believe in overdoing the underpromising.
Regardless of whether it’s good advice or not, the point remains that this forum is one of the best sources of advice on hosting and anyone reading here is ahead of the curve. Airbnb is well advised to steal our ideas and put them in their “Host News.”
The intern that puts together “host news” doesn’t need to be smart. This site comes up high in searches and being a former teacher I’ve seen a lot of plagiarism. But I was being a bit snarky.
