Recently McDonald's has been advertising on radio their free wifi.
Anyone tried it yet?  It takes me about $1 worth of gas for a round
trip to the closest Mc so I haven't tried it yet.

Cosidering the transportation cost it would probably be better to get
your own access at home if you need it daily.

On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 05:42:56 -0700 (PDT)

Don't bother.  I needed a hotspot recently, and noticed a McDonald's
nearby that had a WIFI sign prominently displayed.  So I went there and
ordered a "meal" of sorts, sat down with my snack and fired up the
notebook.  Yup, got a strong signal right away, no problem connecting.
But then you are directed to a web page where you have to enter your
user name and password to one of several PAID Internet Services.  One of
them off the top of my head was something like (Boingo?) I think.
Basically, these services sell you access to hotspots.  McDonald's in
turn sets up a hotspot in most of their stores, which you can use to
access your PAID Internet service.

I heard the recent ads, the same ones you heard, about McDonald's
offering free wifi.  What I heard, and what you missed, is that it is
for a limited time only.  They must give you a user name and password
(that expires soon) for one of the paid services.

If you are interested in free wifi, there are several chains that offer
truly free wifi.  Panera bread for example.  But don't bother with
McDonald's, it is not free.

On a side note, I wonder what is McDonalds' angle on the wifi
situation, that is...what are they getting out of it?  Do they get
a kickback from the paid Internet services?  Is that why it is free
for a limited time?  Hoping you will try it and then subscribe to
the paid service and then McDs gets a cut?  ???????????  -Dave

In article <20080705134204.ffb4ea97.no...@nohow.not>,

I'd like to reiterate, in case anyone missed it: PANERA WIFI IS FREE!
No BS, works great.

<http://www.wififreespot.com/il.html>  is a goo starting place.  Not
wholly up-to-date (i.e. it doesn't list all the Panera locations), but
useful.   Most public libraries have free wifi.

--
This signature can be appended to your outgoing mesages. Many people include in
their signatures contact information, and perhaps a joke or quotation.

On Jul 5, 6:42 am, James <j0069b...@hotmail.com> wrote:

I've had the same experience with McD's "free" wifi as Dave.  In the
case of the one nearest me, they're walking distance from a Panera's
AND a local coffee shop, both of which are truly free hot spots.  So
it's not likely they'll be selling many subscriptions at that store.

If you need daily internet access, and have to make a special trip to
a hot spot, you really should subscribe to an ISP.  Dial up is cheap,
but IMO way too slow to be useful.  Cable, again IMO, is way too
expensive.  I've found DSL to be a reasonable compromise.  I get a
1.5Mbs connection for $26.00 a month, guaranteed for life with a 2
year contract, as part of a bundle with my phone company.  Plenty fast
enough for most routine uses.  About the only time it ever stutters is
with hi res streaming video.

Having subscribed to multiple DSL services and multiple cable modem
services, it is my honest opinion that, at the same price, DSL is a
better deal, even if the advertised top speed is a little lower than
cable modem service in the same area.  I've seen significant slowdowns
on cable modem service, especially on school holidays.  DSL is much
more consistent in service speed (both upload and download), even
though theoretically it is all shared bandwidth at some point.  

If someone were to offer a 1.5M DSL connection for $26 or a 3M cable
modem connection for the same price, I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for
the DSL service.  

Having said that, people in the frugal living ng should be aware that
most cable companies offer a "slower" speed cable modem service to be
more competitive with DSL prices.  The catch is, it's not advertised.
For example, Time Warner offers a Roadrunner Lite service for about $25
per month, capped around 768K download speed.  This is ridiculously
slow as far as cable modems go, but still more than adequate for most
home Internet users.  The only people who wouldn't like 768K would be
heavy downloaders, like heavy P2P users.  Most cable providers
offer a similar deal.  But again, they don't like to advertise it,
as they'd rather let you believe that your only option is the 5-8M
(or so) service for $50 - $60 per month.  -Dave

I have suggested the unpublished "economy" cable modem tier to a number
of relatives and friends and no one has complained. As you said a lot of
folks just don't need or use anything faster and are essentially
throwing $25/month away.

On Jul 5, 6:37 pm, max <betat...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Damn!  I just found out that my local library about 2 miles away had
wifi for about a year already.  Sure beats driving 10 miles to the
nearest Panera.

If I didn't go to your recommended site it might have taken me a long
time to find out about free library access as they don't advertise it.

In article
<1df11318-a381-4607-b022-6a3ae3ec0...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
--> I would just as
--> soon go to Starbucks or a public library rather than sit amongst a bunch
--> of noisy kids

But Starbucks, to put it mildly, isn't free.  That's both the existing
T-Mobile and the newly-instituted AT&T Wi-Fi.  I understand the latter is free
for AT&T wireless customers.  (I happen to be a pay-per-minute T-Mobile user.)

Art

On Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:55:30 GMT, art.shap...@unisys.com (Arthur

I've used the one at the Starbucks that is inside a Safeway. It was
free.