Now I am not sure if this is just me and I somehow missed the big announcement but who else knew that McDonalds restaurants in England now have FREE WiFi ?
This one really slipped by my radar. I knew that a lot of McD’s had BT Openzone Hot spots, but not being interested in spending £6 per hour for Internet access I had not really considered that McDonalds would be positioning themselves ahead of the game in the “WiFi while you eat” market place. It appears I was wrong and in many outlets The Cloud now offers free WiFi to customers, all that is required to get access is that you fill out a form with name, post code and email address ( presumably for customer stats ) and you are away.
From what I can gather this is part of a push to try to move McDonalds into a new market in direct competition with the likes of StarBucks and Costa Coffee, with many restaurants being re-fitted with new trendier decor as well.
Have you tried the McDonalds WiFi ? Does it make you more inclined to drop into a McDonalds ? Let me know what you think.
I was using the free wifi in McDonalds in Shrewsbury last week trying out the Asus Eee.
The service worked pretty well and was browsing the net at a decent speed.
We prolly wouldn't have eaten in Maccyds if the Wifi wasn't available that day.
So it works then !
I have tried on my iPod Touch and work laptop and as you say download speeds were pretty respectable.
Does make me more inclined to use Mcd's than I would do otherwise.
Weird, after posting this article, today took the kids into McDonalds at Walkers Clock, Muxton, Telford and there scattered liberally around the restaurant were lots and lots of brochures explaining how to login to the Free WiFi… Is it just that the rollout of this service has only just started in earnest ?