McWifi?

Well, my brother just sent me this news piece from atnewyork.com about McDonalds and AT&T offering wireless Internet access and I just had to wax a little about it. The article is mainly about how McDonalds is going to offer wifi service at a bunch of their New York and New Jersey locations for free in August.  McDonalds actually has been offering wifi for a while now in some of its locations.  As you may know there are completely free wifi "hotspots" out there, some being the negligence of a person with a home wireless network that hasn't encrypted it so anyone can use it, others intentionally left open for altruistic purposes.  There are other places you can pay to attach yourself to the internet via wifi.  I'm sure there are smaller and maybe even single-location hotspots that charge, but the main company out their selling wifi services at public locations is Tmobile via their "Hot Spot" service.  The service isn't just available in Tmobile stores but in many Starbucks and Borders Books and Music stores.

Tmobile offers a service that one can subscribe to on a monthly basis.  It's $30/month or $20 if you get your cell phone service through Tmobile.  McDonalds doens't offer it.  Tmobile also offers a "day pass" for $10.  After August, McDonalds will be offering a day of access for only $3.  So it seems like for people who only need service on a fairly irregular basis, McDonalds may actually soon trump Tmobile.  I guess we will have to wait and see though how many people would rather save $7 but have to sit on uncomfortable plastic seats and eat food that is mostly bad for you and patronize a business that's generally deleterious to its workforce and many related industries like ranching (anyone read Fast Food Nation), or if you'd rather spend that extra $7 to be in an environment more conducive to working, writing, etc., where you may be surrounded by lots of reference books that could complement your internet research capabilities, or alternate be somewher with some relaxing music (with the occasional din from the espresso machine), plush chairs or couches, and the temptation of spending an additional $7 on each new coffee concoction that you are driven to try.

If McDonalds can get this wifi into all of its locations - which are still more ubiquitous, I believe, then Borders and Starbucks Combined - it may actually make a run for Tmobile's money.  Perhaps it doesn't have a monthly plan because it doesn't think anyone will want to spend more than a few days a month sitting for more than a couple of hours in your average McDonalds.  But for the traveler, especially one not going to places with a Starbucks or Borders, this might be a good deal.  Starbucks has started showing up in rest stops in the highway, but these locations offer no places to sit generally, and a McDonalds does.  So this could be a big advantage.  The only problem is, will McDonalds actually make it available everywhere.  Only making it available in Urban centers they will have direct competition from all the Starbucks and Borders all over most urban centers.  At least this should engender some healthy competition and maybe even some addition parties getting into the game!

I do think it motivates one to partonize a place if it has free or very cheap wifi, and maybe this is one of McDonalds hopes since there sales have been down recently.  Eventually of course none of this stuff will matter because wifi will be ubiquitous - either provided for free as a public service or via municipal districts for a fee from non residents and free for residents, or perhaps via national carriers like AT&T and Tmobile.  But you won't have to go to just certain locations.  Maybe they will start putting wifi on cell towers.  Only problem being wifi doesn't have near the range as even GSM.  At least not yet.  I’m sure a future version will have a much longer range.

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