Wi Fi

For qualified users, its free at McDonalds here in the U.S. now.

How do they define "qualified user?" You have to buy at least a Quarter Pounder with Fries and a medium Coke?

McDonalds is part of the AT&T WiFi hotspot network. If you have AT&T DSL, you can either add WiFi for $1.99 per month, or WiFi is included on higher speed accounts.

They just dropped the $1.99 fee last week or so. I don't know if they changed the $19 per month if you have only an SBC dial-up account.

I've not run into any free McD nets in the USA. Might be as I've not looked as I can usually pick up free hotspots from the local area. If one of those is a burger joint I buy from them vs. McDs. FWIW the change of suppliers does not seem to bother the grand kids.

Its free if you have a AT&T DSL at home or office.

| > I've not run into any free McD nets in the USA. | | Its free if you have a AT&T DSL at home or office.

So it's free only if I pay AT&T for DSL? And that covers how many of the folk that might have need for wifi at McD's?

That correct. That's why I mention it was free for only "qualified" users.

I would say the at&t DSL subscriber pool is a sizable number. Probably more than subscribe to the underlying McDonald's provider wayport.net.

On the other hand, the number of those subscribers that _want_ to surf at McDonald's is a smaller pool. ;-)

The pool of at&t DSL customers that realize they have dialup and wifi as part of their service is probably smaller still.