Phone Companies Offering More Free Wi-Fi Hotspots

Both AT&T and Verizon (News - Alert) are offering more free Wi-Fi service and I'm beginning to think there are very few places you can go where you can't find an open hot-spot these days.

 

McDonald's is providing free Wi-Fi in “partnership” with AT&T (News - Alert) starting in mid-January across its 11,000 restaurants around the country. Currently, McD's charges $2.95 for Internet for non-AT&T customers, but come January the AT&T-operated Wi-Fi network will be open to all. No purchases are required to access the network, so if you don't want to deal with the smell of French fries and signal reception is good, you could simply sit in your car and do your business.

 

It's hard to figure out what the net benefit of this might be for AT&T, but McDonald's has the desire to be a hang-out destination like Starbucks is, abet with cheaper coffee. Free WiFi (News - Alert) may attract more mobile workers who can drive in, get a drink and consume it while catching up on the latest email.

 

McDonald's also needs free Wi-Fi as a simple defensive move against other restaurant chains and individual establishments using wireless service as a lure for grab-and-go and the lingering-luncher set; I saw this in action today at a local sit-down establishment with a pair of road warriors ordering lunch as they popped their laptops (OK, a netbook and a laptop) and went to work. 

 

Meanwhile, Verizon is offering  free Wi-Fi to its 3G Mobile Broadband or GlobalAccess customers through a network of about 10,000 locations, including many hotels, Starbucks locations and the Barnes & Noble bookstore chain. Smartphone customers aren't currently getting access, but that could (should!) change in the future. The win for Verizon is that they can use WiFi to off-load some 3G usage while customers might find better reception on a 'commercial' WiFi network than trying to pull a couple of bars in the bowels of a building.

 

“Free” Wi-Fi for both AT&T and Verizon is likely also to be a low-cost defensive move against WiMax proliferation. Users might be less tempted to migrate over to a cheaper ClearWire's WiMAX (News - Alert) network if they can conduct their business using a combination of 3G and free Wi-Fi services. 

 

Even if you don't like Wi-Fi, the spread of free Wi-Fi services to every restaurant, bar, and burger joint in American can only help to push down the pricing of 3G and 4G services in the future.