I wanted to chime in on this important issue, because I too need reliable internet access while at
DVC resorts. On my recent visit to WDW in late Feb 2012, I undertook a first-time experiment to stay at WDW in the depths of Minnesota winter (not much of one this year) to play 1/3 of time and work the other 2/3.
I spent 3 days at BCV with my brother (from San Diego who happened to be attending a conference at WDW - his first visit), followed by 5 days at AKLV by myself (1-bedroom at Kidani-ultimate luxury) expecting to use my "home-away-from-home" office at AKLV. I absolutely love AKL and Kidani Village in particular.
I almost never take any me-time, with two active teens and a busy law practice. This trip was an attempt to slow down, get a good chunk of work done, enjoy the awesome weather, pools, sunshine, and food (Sanaa, Boma), and just do what I wanted to do. In short, expand use of our DVC membership in a different way, by allowing a near 50 year old patent attorney a viable excuse to enjoy the many benefits of DVC while still putting in a decent work week. I've never done this before, BTW.
Here's a summary of my "home office" experience while at Kidani: Access to my office server in MN was dreadfully slow (e.g., 103 seconds to open a folder, 48 seconds to right-click copy a file to release the function, let alone the many minutes to transfer it to my laptop). Remote desktop was not possible. Work Gmail was the only mode of "reliable" internet access to my clients, allowing me plenty of time to watch the zebras grazing between send and receive operations.
I contacted the front desk and was routed to a "tech" rep who said she needed to talk to the higher tech reps. The tech rep got back to me fairly quickly (within the hour) with their explanation for the problem.
It wasn't a connection problem or a server problem per se, it was an intentional bottleneck placed on each wireless router to throttle back bandwidth through the router for files larger than 256K bytes. There seemed to be some logic in this explanation because web surfing on my iPhone via in-room wireless was pretty fast. The tech said the same restrictions were applied to the in-room wired connection as well.
My experience at Kidani was exactly the same as at BCV. I was hoping the newer infrastructure at Kidani would have resulted in much better internet performance, but it was not to be.
I considered an AT&T hot spot or tethering option, but AT&T coverage is so completely unreliable at WDW that this was not a viable solution. Note that I purchased a pre-paid Verizon burner phone ($39) in Orlando that worked fabulously (an excellent inexpensive work-around for phone service since AT&T Iphone cellular service is essentially non-existent). I was able to hold hour+ long telecons with my clients via Verizon - thank you Verizon.
Lastly, my final solution to the DVC Wi-Fi problem was to purchase a new Ipad with 4G Verizon as the carrier (a fun business purchase) which I can use as a hot spot for my laptop (in addition to using many business Ipad apps). I need only activate the Verizon 4G service on a month-to-month basis (via the Ipad) and for an expected volume of data transport needed ($50 for 5 GB). I haven't tried this out yet, but hope to repeat a more productive working vacation in the coming months.
Disney and DVC have been such an important part of our family history, and whether the responsible entity is DVC or Disney Resorts, please remember the first rule in business - "keep your [existing] clients happy" - new ones are much harder to find if you let down your current clients.
Bill
