McDonalds to Offer Free WiFi

By Greg McNevin

October 23, 2008: When you’re on the go in Australia, it can often be challenging to find a WiFi hotspot, particularly one that doesn’t come with security risks or a need for credit card details. However, McDonalds is about to change all that with the announcement that it will be rolling out free WiFi access to all of its stores.

The fast food giant has teamed up with Telstra to roll out free wireless to all of its 720 stores around Australia. That may not sound too impressive by global standards, but outside of a handful of areas in bigger cities, finding free WiFi in Australia can be like trying to find loose change at the beach without a metal detector.

Selected McDonalds outlets have been offering WiFi for a fee for a while now, however, the switch to free WiFi for all brings Australian stores into line with their US counterparts, which have been offering free wireless since 2003.

The company will be rolling out the service on Telstra’s Next IP network, and expects its hotspots to be up and running by March 2009.

Fingers crossed outlets at Airports aren’t left out of the deal.

Comment on this story