I was pinged by Austin Startup on the news early this morning, and it made me wonder if the same deal that's been proffered to Starbucks customers will also be extended to McDonald's patrons.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a coffee-addict, and I'll use any excuse to hang out in a coffee bar for extended periods of time to suck down that sweet, sweet nectar of the gods. But as a father who happens to be a web worker, I more often find myself setting up shop at a McDonald's than the Starbucks across the street. To that end, I'd be far more likely to start up a tab there and set myself up with a McDonald's Card if it came with two free daily hours of WiFi (and I imagine I'm not the only one in that boat).
Stacey Higgenbotham over at GigaOm sees it as more of a move by AT&T to alleviate the load off the mobile data network than as a value add for McDonald's customers:
Buying Wayport and offering 20,000 hot spots (including in airports and McDonald’s restaurants) in the U.S. allows AT&T to provide its customers with more places to do their bandwidth-sucking applications. Already, AT&T is willing to let iPhone and BlackBerry users access its Wi-Fi hotspots free at Starbucks. It also means AT&T can hold out a bit longer before deploying its 4G LTE network, which is designed for data.