LOS ANGELES--Some of the nation's top hotel chains hit a speed bump on the information superhighway in recent weeks, after losing service from their bankrupt high-speed Internet access provider, hotel representatives said on Friday.

As a result of problems that left some properties without service for as much as a month, hotel operators Hilton Hotels, John Q. Hammons Hotels and Cendant Corp. said they are all looking for replacements for Ardent Communications, now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Officials from the three companies could not quantify how much business they lost due to the problems, but some damage occurred, said James Lingle, director of information technology for Hammons, which owns 52 hotels under the Embassy Suites, Holiday Inn and Hampton Inn names.

Lingle said that Hammons will terminate its relationship with Ardent on Feb. 1.

Ardent, which filed for bankruptcy in October, had initially specialized in providing broadband Internet access to hotels and apartments.

"I don't have any hard numbers to say we've lost this much business, but it's pretty fair to say that's definitely happened," Lingle said. "When you're down a month with a service you tend to provide to your guests, it's fair to assume it's affected your revenue."

Lingle said that outages at Hammons hotels began as early as October, and have affected at least a half dozen properties since then. He added that service disruptions lasted anywhere from two to as many as four weeks with some clients avoiding the hotel because it could not offer Internet service.

"The explanations varied," he said. "Sometimes they would say the circuit was turned down by the provider, or there was a physical problem with the equipment. ... There was never a clear explanation of why."

Help wanted
Cendant, meanwhile, is in the process of finding a replacement to provide high-speed Web service for more than 6,000 of its franchisees for the Days Inn, Ramada, Super 8, Howard Johnson, Travelodge, Knight's Inn and Villager chains.

Cendant spokesman Michael LaCosta said the company was in the midst of installing high-speed Internet access for many of its franchisees when the problems began to occur.

"We've formally ended our relationship with (Ardent) in terms of installations," he said. "But the company itself and Cendant itself are in the process of working out details about their future relationship."

The situation was similar at Hilton, which first learned of problems in December when one of its hotels called to say that its high-speed Internet access had stopped without explanation, said spokeswoman Jeannie Datz.

"It wasn't a collective shut-down. It was sporadic," she said, adding that about 150 Hilton and Hilton Garden Inn hotels were wired with high-speed access from Ardent.

Ardent spokeswoman Alison Tobin confirmed that the company decided to stop providing in-room, high-speed Internet access as part of its reorganization after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last October.

"That's been the reason for why we're no longer doing the hotel services," she said. "If a hotel wanted to buy access from us they could, but we're not doing in-room access."

To Rewire or not
The problems at Ardent and suspension of service have provided a time-out for hotel operators to reevaluate their plans for providing in-room high-speed access--once considered a must-have during the dot-com boom.

While some chains said they will forge ahead with service from new partners, others said they may reconsider their previous plans.

Lingle said John Q. Hammons has chosen WorldCom as its new in-room service provider, but is still deciding how many high-speed lines to install.

"We need to make sure that where we provide our access makes sense for us," he said.

LaCosta said that Cendant is also reviewing its Internet strategy.

"We'll continue forward as long as we find a provider that's beneficial to us as well as the consumer," he said. "It's an amenity that's in high demand in the marketplace."