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| Now, I'm moving upscale! WOW! As they said on the Jeffersons...I'm movin on up!
I'm one those $10.00 a month DSL customers with a $2.85 per month local line here in southern California.
I've been using the McDonald's and Barnes & Noble locations for over two years. I've tried the UPS Store, but no where to sit.
At McDonald's, I find it's rare and I mean rare that anyone is using their laptop. Sometimes, you'll see someone with the Nintendo thingy. Usually, it just me using my laptop mixed in with the other patrons and happy mealers.
The great thing about McDonald's is the amount of table space you have to work at as compared to Starbucks. I have never been questioned by an employee why I have not purchased anything while taking up a seat. Frankly, most of the employees at McDonald's have no idea what Wi-Fi or Wayport are, and for the most part are clueless about it.
Occasionally, I might buy a bottled water or a parfait yogurt but otherwise do no eat Ronald's food.
I never go to Starbucks simply because they do not have enough table space for my comfort level, and I don't drink coffee or tea (no, I'm not Mormon) so the McDonald's option has been great for me. Over the past two years, I have noticed a marked improvement in the speeds at many of the McDonald's I visit.
Now that I have my own DSL account for $10.00 per month, I just pay the extra $1.99 for the Wi-Fi option as the basic level does not provide free Wi-Fi. When I used my friends Wi-Fi account, they were also paying $1.99 per month until recently when AT&T made Wi-Fi free for the more expensive DSL plans.
This is a big change. I would have never thought that Starbucks would have switched providers. Must have been some big financial incentives for Starbucks in the bid that AT&T returned in the form of revenue sharing that T-Mobile did not care to match or chose not to beat.
Now, will this change AT&T's agreement with Wayport and are the days of AT&T Wi-Fi coming to an end at the house of Ronald and Barnes & Noble? Wait, doesn't B&N sell Starbucks? | | |
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patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Finding power outlets in McDonalds has been much more difficult for me than Starbucks, usually 0-2 for the dining area of McD, while Starbucks has one every 10-15 feet. Also its much more likly you can get a seat with a power outlet near it in Starbucks than McD. Also some McDs have problems with mentally ill homeless (compared to sane homeless for Starbucks), and attract much more wild, destructive, and jailbird customers. Ive been to McD that locks its doors for 1 and 1/2 hours after the line of sight public middle school empties. Manager stands at 1 door, and only unlocks it when an adult/non-middle schooler approaches. At one point the McD called school security to remove the kids, but they just cursed out security, and security couldn't do anything (off school property). Before this policy, every seat would be taken with screaming kids, play fighting, screaming across dining room, pounding on and screaming at glass to unsuccessfully grab their friend who is outside's attention, table taken for 45 mins with nobody buying anything, sometimes they stole stuff from each other playfully or seriously (couldn't tell) and there would be a running pursuit in foot traffic as bad as a jammed up entrance to an escalator knocking everyone off their feet, sometimes food get thrown, ass grabbing, and every last table taken for 1 hour, jumping/standing on tables and jumping over partitions, and the kids would challenge and curse out anyone who dared talk to them. No thanks, I'll stick with Starbucks.
Only thing I didn't see at that McD when the kids were there was drugs, weapons, sexual assault, and a ghettoblaster (thankfully it was the portable CD player age already). My advice would be to allocate a soda machine (drive thru one most likly) and put horse tranquilizers in the syrup lines to that machine and fill the kids' sodas from that machine. | |
| reply to HellsBells
Interesting observation on competition! So, McDs and Starbucks are now head to head with SBUX going more into food and McDs offering espresso-machined coffees.
Remember the days when SBUX folks used to grind the beans for each shot and you could smell it? Now all SBUX shops use enclosed machines and push buttons - not much different from McDs. Like restaurants who pump oven exhaust onto street in front of their shops (smart move especially for bakeries), those machines should blow exhaust from internal grinders out to cafe...
With ATT serving both, that is interesting indeed. | |
| reply to HellsBells
Re: Now, I'm moving upscale! Thats for sure. McDonalds has Wayport wi-fi access (cheaper) and better coffee than Starbucks. Then again the folks at McDs are very clueless of "whats a wayport?".  | |
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