A Big Mac, Fries and surf on your Wi-Fi please…

In the coming month McDonalds in Japan will begin trialling the use of internet access terminals in their restaurants, offering wireless broadband from the Softbank provider. They plan to give the opportunity for diners to use 'access points' in restaurants across the country and should this be successful there could be the possibility of it being adopted in other countries.

Later today McDonalds and Softbank will hold a news conference announcing this move and both companies are hoping to benefit from the service. McDonalds hope that they will attract more custom by installing the system while Softbank will expand their undersubscribed broadband network. Softbank have been working with the Japanese Yahoo service to offer ADSL but have been unable to attract sufficient subscribers. McDonalds has 3,900 restaurants across Japan and would clearly be a valued customer should the trial prove successful.

In other Wi-Fi news BT are moving closer to beginning to offer a public wireless network in the UK which would allow people access to broadband in a variety of places. This is being created with partnerships from Motorola and Cisco, and they are hoping to have four hundred sites operational be 2003, and four thousand by 2005. The network would be made available in Welcome Break motorway restaurants, Costa coffee shops, railway stations and airports.

The technology behind Wi-Fi has now been established as 802.11b and alternatives such as HyperLAN2 and HomeRF are set to be consigned to history. Due to limitations concerning the broadcast range which WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) can use only a small number of providers will be able to operate in order to avoid interference and companies getting a foothold now will be the ones operating the networks for the foreseeable future.

News source: Reuters