SBC has inked a deal to sell WiFi at 6000 McDonald's fast food restaurants. Daily access will cost $7.95, and monthly access will cost $19.95.
The daily access cost is a bit silly. Who is going to buy a $5 meal and pay $8 to surf the Web while you drip special sauce on your keyboard?
The $19.95 monthly rate is more interesting. As a frequent traveler, it might well be worth it if I know I can walk into any McDonald's and get broadband access (without buying any food).
It may or may not sell many burgers for McDonald's. I don't think it will. As the reporter notes at the end of the article, the big winner may be SBC, who just sold 6000 DSL lines at the higher business class rate. My guess is this worth at least $10 million/year or more to SBC, and SBC is probably getting a big upfront payment to be the systems integrator and equipment supplier. It will be interesting to see if McDonald's is still providing this service in two years. Remember that "free WiFi" is never free; someone is always paying. If the service does not increase food sales, McDonald's will pull it.
If communities believe that affordable WiFi access, widely available, is important to local economic development initiatives, this demonstrates the problem of leaving it entirely to the private sector--it may or may not be available over the long term, and/or there may be many areas of the community that need it and may not have it.
It's hardly good economic development marketing to tell businesspeople that they should meet in McDonald's.