Free wi-fi on offer at McDonald's

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Web surfing and social media now available at fast-food chain

By Computerworld Staff | Auckland | Thursday, 16 December, 2010 | 5 Comments

McDonald’s has announced that it is offering free wi-fi in nearly all its outlets nationwide.

In a statement, McDonald’s Managing Director Mark Hawthorne is quoted as saying: "No matter where you are in New Zealand, there will be a McDonald’s nearby, which makes us the perfect place to offer this kind of internet service.

“Free wi-fi is the perfect service for the growing number of people who use their mobiles to access social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Customers with iPhones, iPads, PDAs and the like will find free wi-fi a welcome way to stay connected socially, for free, just by heading on down to their local McDonald’s," Hawthorne says.

McDonald’s free wi-fi is currently available in 132 outlets nationwide, with 145 expected to be offering the service by the end of the year. The fast-food chains says there are nine foodcourt outlets and four airport ones which are not able to offer the service, due to lease arrangements.

Hawthorne says that "as with any information technology service, some restaurants may experience teething problems in the first couple of weeks, but they will be resolved as quickly as possible."

The service is provided by TelstraClear.

Comments

Typical Auckland Airport RipOff Typical of places like Auckland Airport to block it, they are far more interested in extracting every cent they can get from you than providing anything useful. They currently offer wifi for a rip off rate, whereas Wellington does it for free - So it cant be just what Monopoly's do.

Good on McDonalds in general, they do this in Australia and it makes a lot of sense
Posted by Anonymous at 12:53:55 on December 17, 2010

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Typical Auckland Airport RipOff But Auckland Airport does have PCs available with free Internet access on them
Posted by Jason at 19:48:32 on December 17, 2010

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Typical Auckland Airport RipOff Great option. Force customers to go find a pc somewhere not convient and perhaps wait in a line when the have laptops iPads and the like in their pockets. Sounds like good service to me.
Posted by Anonymous at 22:41:27 on December 18, 2010

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Will You Have To Buy Something To Use It? Or will it just work for anybody nearby?

And what about that "ones which are not able to offer the service, due to lease arrangements"? Wi-Fi is on an unregulated band, and nobody can tell you not to use it. Overseas, airports and other such places that have tried to regulate wi-fi use on their premises have been found to be breaking the law.
Posted by Lawrence D'Oliveiro at 11:37:41 on December 17, 2010

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Will You Have To Buy Something To Use It? If the lease agreement has restrictions forbidding it?

Examples of these are types of services/goods offered, opening hours (ie have to be open weekends etc) and not offering 'competing services'.

Each country has different laws so I suspect that McDonald's has looked at the issues, the extact leases and NZ law. They try to be exactly the same in each store and if they thought they could offer it then they would have.
Posted by Steven at 11:43:13 on December 18, 2010

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