A hotel I frequent has wi-fi, it it has many wi-fi names available, I can normally pick up 3-5 of the (about 10 in the hotel) login names.

The hotel gives a list of the PW for each one.

Ground floor reception is always working for both. But on the other 10 or so, (yes I jump in the lift and try) either only my phone or PC works, never both at once.

Can they choose ?

Thx

A single WiFi Access Point can't cover a whole building very well. So they tend to use a couple of base units on each floor.

You should be able to pick up the units on the same floor, and possibly the units above and below.

The WiFi Access Point, sometimes also called a WiFi Hotspot, has an a range of 35 m (115 ft) indoors and 100 m (330 ft) outdoors, maybe more it special antennas are used.

If under the control of the same entity, each WiFi Access Point may all have the same name, a similar name, or a different name to assist in locating and identifying different units.

Your experience interacting with them will depend on the budget spent to plan, install and maintain the devices. A high-end location may monitor how many guest are issued ID to access the system at one time in an attempt to control how the subscribed Internet bandwidth is utilized. A low-end location may not understand or care about congestion and contention occurring on their Internet connection, and if too many people try the access the Internet simultaneously then everyone suffers.

On hi-end systems the operators can limit how many simultaneous WiFi connections you can have. Generally they do this by redirecting all new connection so a web login page where the password they provide can only be used to connect one device at a time (by associating the successful login with the device Ethernet Hardware MAC address)

On simple home-type systems where the WiFi connection is protected with a single password and no web page login then it should allow you multiple simultaneous device connections. Thought it's very possible to run into compatibility issues when don't use the same configuration on each WiFi Access Point, allow the guests to access the setup parameters of the WiFi Access Point, or use equipment from different vendors, creating a hodge-podge patchwork network.

It is very unlikely they would select one type of device like a PC or a Smartphone to work, and not the other. Most likely it's a wireless network compatibility issue.