McDonalds to offer free wi-fi from today

Forums › New Zealand Mobile and Wireless › McDonalds to offer free wi-fi from today

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1 post

Wannabe Geek

#425860 10-Jan-2011 19:00

At least nothing as important as people bitching about how terrible and unacceptable a FREE service is.

I heard no complaints a month ago when there was no service at all. Now there's a FREE service and people are up in arms because it doesn't work the way they think it should.

If you don't like it, imagine it's not there and don't use it.

Problem solved.

nigelj

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Ultimate Geek

#425870 10-Jan-2011 19:11

freitasm: It's a free and private service. Why people would assume it has to be censor free?

I wonder why McDonald's didn't use that word for word as a response to Media enquiries? Surely on the login page/agreement form there would be a "McDonalds can censor whatever we like" clause (yet to use it, will give it a go later this week).

But kudos for McDonald's for doing this, paying (large amounts of money) for Wifi for mundane stuff while having a coffee/cup of tea I brought on site, has always irked me, in most cases in the past I've only used it to stay in contact with people (while travelling overseas etc) or general web browsing/news sites. I think the last time I paid to use Wifi it was about 9AUD for ~15 minutes at a city Starbucks via Telstra.

I wouldn't even complain if McDonalds restricted it to paying customers, or even did it as something like "donate 10c/20c/50c to Ronald McDonald House/Starship/Other Worthwhile cause) for 50MB" as it'd be Win/Win - in fact in my next visit I might just do that.

Addon: On second thoughts, people might try to establish that service levels exist if donation-to-use is brought in (even though it's similar to the gold coin donation for a fake Daffodil etc), but I wouldn't object to either.

shawnh

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Wannabe Geek

#425878 10-Jan-2011 19:19

You could also do it with Chillispot, on routers and normal hardware.

I used Chillispot extensively in a previous life for managed hotspot services.

l43a2

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#425879 10-Jan-2011 19:19

you can tell its a slow news day... :P

hairy1

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#425882 10-Jan-2011 19:24

Geez.... You can see why companies don't even bother sponsoring or going the extra mile these days. They get put through the wringer for even offering free services!!!

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

mckenndk

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Ultimate Geek

#425890 10-Jan-2011 19:48

I wonder why McDonald's didn't use that word for word as a response to Media enquiries? Surely on the login page/agreement form there would be a "McDonalds can censor whatever we like" clause (yet to use it, will give it a go later this week).

But kudos for McDonald's for doing this, paying (large amounts of money) for Wifi for mundane stuff while having a coffee/cup of tea I brought on site, has always irked me, in most cases in the past I've only used it to stay in contact with people (while travelling overseas etc) or general web browsing/news sites. I think the last time I paid to use Wifi it was about 9AUD for ~15 minutes at a city Starbucks via Telstra.

I wouldn't even complain if McDonalds restricted it to paying customers, or even did it as something like "donate 10c/20c/50c to Ronald McDonald House/Starship/Other Worthwhile cause) for 50MB" as it'd be Win/Win - in fact in my next visit I might just do that.

Addon: On second thoughts, people might try to establish that service levels exist if donation-to-use is brought in (even though it's similar to the gold coin donation for a fake Daffodil etc), but I wouldn't object to either.

A bit off topic

When I lived in Edinburgh and Bristol I did not have any internet to my flat and in my second flat did not even have a TV so what I would usually do is bike into town with the laptop in tow have have a drink at the pub which would in turn get you the security key for their free internet.

Most of the time it was not censored and you could do P2P as well or what I did was download the programs I wanted to watch off bbc Iplayer.

On the other side of it the Bristol City Council had free wifi through out the whole CBD which was highly cencored and no body complained about that.

Another place like this is Tallinn the capital of Estonia also has free wifi which was very useful so I did not have to pay for the hostel internet and I could show my mum around part of the old town from my laptop (it was a snowy cold morning and there was not many people around to see it).
To get access to it you need to either send a text to a number or call a number and they will give you a 24 hour access code so not exactlly free but the cost of a text message is not expensive.

You still have the pay to use at Starbucks but who would use it.

It could also end up like xtra wifi hot spots I am sure that there was a massive drop off of people using them once they outsourced the magament of them and even the xtra customers having to pay extra to use it.
So I hope they don't start charging a premium to us it.

Dion

freitasm

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#425893 10-Jan-2011 20:06

mckenndk: get access to it you need to either send a text to a number or call a number and they will give you a 24 hour access code so not exactlly free but the cost of a text message is not expensive.

Not for the cost but they obviously capture a record of your mobile phone number, so if you do anything illegal with that connection they have a small chance of getting to you - either on account, or if you ever used a credit card to topup a prepay mobile.

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SteveON

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#425911 10-Jan-2011 21:22

mckenndk:
SteveON: Have tried to connect via iPhone numerous times... Does not seem to work for me or my friends.

Did you go to the page your browser gets redirected to first to agree to the terms of use? you have to put the tick in the box etc first then you are free to surf.

Dion

Nope it came up with nothing, I tried it in about 3 different Maccas over summer holiday up north. I work opposite Maccas in J'ville but it still gives me issues. So I just leech off the Free Mobile wifi (next door) which works perfectly!

alasta

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#425916 10-Jan-2011 21:37

SteveON:
mckenndk:
SteveON: Have tried to connect via iPhone numerous times... Does not seem to work for me or my friends.

Did you go to the page your browser gets redirected to first to agree to the terms of use? you have to put the tick in the box etc first then you are free to surf.

Dion

Nope it came up with nothing, I tried it in about 3 different Maccas over summer holiday up north. I work opposite Maccas in J'ville but it still gives me issues.

I have tried using it in a few different McDonald's locations around the country on both my iPhone 3GS and my iPad and I quite often get the vague 'unable to connect to network' error, but i had put that down to the sporadic Wifi connectivity problems that the latest iOS iteration appears to have been plagued with.

mckenndk

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Ultimate Geek

#425917 10-Jan-2011 21:41

SteveON:
mckenndk:
SteveON: Have tried to connect via iPhone numerous times... Does not seem to work for me or my friends.

Did you go to the page your browser gets redirected to first to agree to the terms of use? you have to put the tick in the box etc first then you are free to surf.

Dion

Nope it came up with nothing, I tried it in about 3 different Maccas over summer holiday up north. I work opposite Maccas in J'ville but it still gives me issues. So I just leech off the Free Mobile wifi (next door) which works perfectly!

I can only guess there is a browser security setting that is stopping the redirect happening, it works ok on my Samsung Galaxy comes up with the inital home page and you tick the box etc.

freitasm

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#425926 10-Jan-2011 22:00

It worked for me, no problems, with Windows Mobile 6.5 (AT&T LG Expo) and Windows Phone 7 (HTC Trophy), and Android 2.1 (Motorola Milestone).

kingjj

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#425945 10-Jan-2011 22:45

Couldn't get it to work on my Nokia e63, "could not connect" error, anyone know the url of the homepage it redirects to?

cyril7

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#425985 11-Jan-2011 07:33

My Android Magic and XP net book all made use of macca's free internet over the holiday break in various parts of the NI, there were no issues connecting, great service.

Cyril

allan

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#426012 11-Jan-2011 09:40

I heard the McDonalds' MD being interviewed on National Radio this morning saying they were using a Bluecoat device for their web filtering, with default settings (my interpretation) and had made no concious decision one way or the other about what sites to block or allow.

mckenndk

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#426103 11-Jan-2011 13:11

http://login1.maccasfreewifi.net.nz/login.php?controller=192.168.59.35&source=192.168.43.120&destina...

From mcdonalds Mana

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