Whiling away the afternoon on the laptop nestled into a comfy sofa in the corner of a coffee shop has a certain appeal. Settling into a yellow plastic chair in McDonald’s surrounded by screaming kids to write your great novel doesn’t have quite the same magic.
But after half a century of doing all they could to rush customers out the door, McDonald’s now wants you to slow down.
The fast-food chain is experimenting with wireless Internet in a handful of New York restaurants. So called WiFi hot spots have been installed in several restaurants in Manhattan, allowing customers to surf the Web on their little Mac while they tuck into a Big Mac.
The plan is to tap into a market of at least 78-million Americans that McDonald’s reckons spend part of their working day on the road. The company is offering a free hour of Internet service with an extra value meal for between $3,25 and $4,75.
Users need the proper equipment on their laptops to detect the local network, whether it be in the restaurant or another hot spot. A wireless Internet broadcast station tends to cover a radius of about 30m.
After a number of stuttering false starts, wireless broadband Internet access, with speeds that allow the transmission of video, has at last begun to gain momentum.
Independent bookshops and coffee shops have already been using WiFi to woo customers for a while and now the corporations are moving in.
Starbucks started putting WiFi networks into 1 200 of its United States stores last year and charges users $6 a day or $30 a month for unlimited use.
Hilton, Marriott and other hotel chains have also begun installing systems in lobbies, guest rooms and restaurants and Boeing is putting the technology in aeroplanes. Lufthansa is already offering an inflight service and British Airways is expected to follow shortly.
The electronics group Toshiba is planning to install 10 000 hot spots across the US, and the cellphone maker Ericsson is planning 5 000 in Britain. They are also popping up in unexpected places, including some New York parks.
McDonald’s is installing the equipment in 10 Manhattan restaurants, but is intending to install hundreds more by the end of the year in New York, Chicago and an undisclosed city in California.
The technology was given its biggest boost last month when Intel, the world’s largest maker of processing chips, bet on wireless technology as the next big thing.
The company is spending $300-million to advertise the wireless chip called Centrino, which allows laptop users to log on to the Internet while scoffing a burger or sipping a latte.
The campaign features people surfing the Internet by the poolside or on the golf driving range.
Intel chairperson Andy Grove has said that Centrino is second only to the introduction of the Pentium, the chip that powers most of the world’s computers.
The chip bundles the laptop processor with wireless technologies, which means that consumers don’t need to buy separate parts, such as wireless cards. Wireless Internet browsing will instead become a standard feature on most machines.
Many of the big computer makers, including Dell, Sony, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Panasonic are making Centrino co-branded laptops, with prices starting at $1 399.
Apple has been building WiFi capabilities into Macs since 1999. By 2005, 90% of
laptops are expected to do the same.
The Centrino chip not only enables broadband access to the Internet but also speeds up other functions on the laptop and boosts battery life to five hours.
There are still issues surrounding security. If a network isn’t set up properly then hackers can see information as it is transmitted.
There are also many incompatible systems in use.
But if Intel has its way, fast wire-free Internet access will become as widely used as the desktop computer.
The company’s determination to make it work is apparent.
Intel is doing deals with more than 20 000 hot spots to ensure that they are compatible and make Centrino a standard. They are also investing in other wireless companies.
Last year it created a $150-million fund to invest in companies that are helping to expand and accelerate the infrastructure and capabilities required to make wireless computing ubiquitous.
The company believes it would cost between $2-billion and $3-billion to cover all of the US with WiFi, making it one large hot spot, in much the same way that mobile phone networks cover most of the country.
It is unlikely to be long before the technology is adapted to other devices, including hand-held and cellphones — Intel has developed WiFi capabilities in its latest line of chips for both.
The technology can only be a good thing for media owners as it creates more opportunities for users to access their sites and at faster speeds.
While for a moribund technology sector, where the sale of PCs is stagnant, wireless Internet access offers the hope of a badly needed new impetus. — Â