I've just been away on business to Amsterdam with a group of my associates where we spent the majority of time in a single room discussing a project. Although we didn't spent a lot of time on the Internet - in fact, we tried desparately to keep laptops closed so we could concentrate on the matter at hand.

However, checking email and calls home to the various homes via Skype required Internet access. The cost was almost prohibitive, but it was a necessary expense and so therefore unavoidable.

Why so expensive?

Internet access is cheap, especially in a large modern city like Amsterdam. Is it because the hotel knows it's now almost a requirement and can therefore cash-in? Other hotels manage to give it away free, so it's not a blanekt policy in the industry.