McDonald's, Toshiba Roll Out Hotspots in Chicago
Continuing their push to test out different hotspot providers, McDonald's and Toshiba made the announcement that they're now offering WiFi at McDonald's restaurants in the Chicago area. Definitely an interesting strategy by McDonald's to go with three different providers (Cometa, Wayport and Toshiba) to see how good they are, rather than just signing an exclusive deal on the promises of one company. It will be especially interesting to see what happens after the "test phase" is over. The Chicago plan seems to be priced similarly (though, not identically) to the NY plan - which apparently had mixed success. That is, if you buy some food, you get an hour free. I still think this is the smartest pricing plan for such a place. They don't want people hanging around too long without buying more food, but they still want the attraction of "free WiFi". Of course, in NY, the results weren't so great. However, that might just be a function of the "why would I want to sit in McDonald's and surf while screaming kids are running around?" mentality. Anyway, Alan Reiter has plenty more details on his site about the Toshiba/McDonald's trials.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
