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You Want Wi-Fi with That? McDonald’s To Make Wi-Fi Free
Your next business-office-away-from-home could be a McDonald’s. The fast-food chain has announced that, beginning in mid-January, it will offer free Wi-Fi Internet access at 11,000 of its 13,000 U.S. restaurants. The service is presented as a partnership with AT&T.
McDonald’s already offers free Wi-Fi in some other countries, such as Belgium and Italy. McDonald’s currently charges U.S. customers $2.95 for two hours of wireless Internet, although AT&T customers get free Wi-Fi.
No Purchase Required
McDonald’s said that, in addition to no hourly charges, no food or drink purchases will be required. In fact, in some cases users don’t even have to be in the restaurant. Some customers report that wireless is often accessible in the parking lot of McDonald’s restaurants.
In 2003, McDonald’s started offering Wi-Fi in its 75 San Francisco Bay Area restaurants, in 10 New York locations, and in 140 locations in Singapore. Originally, there was a $4.95 charge for two hours of service.
Free Wi-Fi has become a kind of loss leader, where companies provide it to attract customers to locations or services and, hopefully, promote goodwill and up-sell to paid offerings.
For instance, in the fall Microsoft started providing free Wi-Fi at thousands of hot spots across the U.S. if a user tried its Bing search engine at least once. Google is offering free Wi-Fi at nearly 50 airports in the U.S. as part of an arrangement with Boingo Wireless.
‘An Awful Lot of McDonald’s’
This is in addition to Google’s free Wi-Fi on all Virgin America flights. The service at the airports and Virgin America, however, only lasts until Jan. 15. Users can donate to specific charities during sign-in, which Google will match up to $250,000. The company noted that about 100 million people will be traveling through airports through January.
And, for one year, Yahoo is giving away free…
source : www.newsfactor.com
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Submited at Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm on tech by madison
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