McDonald's will offer customers free Wi-Fi come January, according to reports. Coupling Wi-Fi with its new coffee offerings, will the Golden Arches steal some green from Starbucks? Verizon says it is also now offering free Wi-Fi to some subscribers.
Not even the Dollar Menu can top this deal. Beginning in January 2010,
McDonald's will offer its in-store Wi-Fi service for free, according to
reporting from
Wi-Fi Net News.
McDonald's currently charges $2.95 for 2 hours of Wi-Fi service, which is
run by AT&T, since it bought Wayport. The free coverage will be available
in McDonald's approximately 11,000 locations in the United
States, as well as those in Canada
that currently offer Wi-Fi.
The news comes a day after
Verizon Wireless began offering free Wi-Fi service to subscribing
customers in the United States,
Canada and Mexico.
In addition to pleasing customers, the move is seen as a way for Verizon to
keep its data network nimble as more customers sign up for smartphones and data
services.
In particular, following a huge marketing campaign,
Verizon launched the Motorola Droid on Nov. 5 and sold 250,000 units during the first week. The
Droid has been called the best Android-running device to date.
AT&T led the way in making its hot spots-which reportedly number more than
24,000, versus Verizon's approximately 10,000-available to subscribers,
smartphone owners and all.
The McDonald's offer, Charles King, a principal analyst with Pund-IT, told
eWEEK, "indicates the degree to which Wi-Fi-based access has become so
inexpensive that it can be used as a cheap promotional gimmick."
It also shows "how many people see the technology as part of their
everyday work or recreational life, that they could be attracted to McDonald's
restaurants because of this. When you go to a Starbucks caf??«, you tend to see
far more people with their noses buried in laptops than chatting over coffee,"
King continued.
"Most every chain that offers fast food, which is to say, cheap
commodity food, is looking for a way to get new customers, or old customers to
look at them in a new way," he said.
The enormous success of the Starbucks model, according to King, points to
just how much money there is to be made in coffee, and in 2009, McDonald's also
introduced a line of McCaf??« espresso-based beverages.
"It's easy to make the jump of saying they have coffee, they have
Wi-Fi, they're trying to steal some of Starbucks' thunder," said King.
He laughed and then added, "I'll take them more seriously when they
start to get more comfortable seating. In my neighborhood, they've still got
those molded-plywood seats that are ergonomically designed to be uncomfortable
after 20 minutes."
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