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"AT&amp;T has purchased Dallas-based WiFi hotspot operator Wayport for a stunning $275 million in cash. The privately held company administers over 10,000 WiFi hotspots for various hotel chains like\u00A0Wyndham, Marriott Vacation Club and Four Seasons\u00A0as well as McDonald's restaurants nationwide.\nI was pinged by Austin Startup on the news early this morning, and it made me wonder if the same deal that's been proffered to Starbucks customers will also be extended to McDonald's patrons.\nDon't get me wrong, I'm a coffee-addict, and I'll use any excuse to hang out in a coffee bar for extended periods of time to suck down that sweet, sweet nectar of the gods. But as a father who happens to be a web worker, I more often find myself setting up shop at a McDonald's than the Starbucks across the street. To that end, I'd be far more likely to start up a tab there and set myself up with a McDonald's Card if it came with two free daily hours of WiFi (and I imagine I'm not the only one in that boat).\nStacey Higgenbotham over at GigaOm sees it as more of a move by AT&amp;T to alleviate the load off the mobile data network than as a value add for McDonald's customers:\nBuying\u00A0Wayport\u00A0and offering 20,000 hot spots (including in airports and McDonald\u2019s restaurants) in the U.S. allows AT&amp;T to provide its customers with more places to do their bandwidth-sucking applications. Already,\u00A0AT&amp;T is willing to let iPhone and BlackBerry\u00A0users access its Wi-Fi hotspots free at Starbucks. It also means\u00A0AT&amp;T can hold out a bit longer\u00A0before deploying its 4G LTE network, which is designed for data.\nWhile that's likely the rationale being used to justify the purchase, one hopes that they see the opportunity here to continue to expand their reach and build up business for their host partners."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/11/07/mcdonalds-free-wifi/>