Want Wi-Fi with That?

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Before Wayport had much time to glory in its April win of a bid to unwire McDonald’s restaurants, one of its key competitors went belly-up.

Immediately, it seemed, pundits and analysts everywhere were asking whether the retail model for Wi-Fi hot spots—the one that suggests wireless connectivity will attract new customers to a venue—had any promise at all.

Cometa Networks Inc., a wholesaler of hot-spot infrastructure services, announced last week that it is suspending operations, just as MobileStar Network Corp., Joltage Networks Inc., hereUare Communications Inc., Aerozone and others with similar ambitions had done before it.

Cometa, along with Toshiba, had been vying with Wayport Inc. for the McDonald’s Corp. deployment.

Click here to read about how Cometa hot spots are being used in the wake of the company’s demise.

For Wayport, McDonald’s is a new kind of gig. The company has built a successful presence in the travel and hospitality sector, providing hot-spot services to mobile professionals—the people most likely to use them—in more than 800 hotels, a dozen airports and 16 Laptop Lane business service centers.

So, why on earth is it fooling around with retail? Does it really expect to make money in an environment where laptops share tables with special sauce, Cherry Cokes and sticky fingers?

Click here for a look at one writer’s experience at a McDonald’s hot spot.

Obviously, the answer is ‘yes.’ Wayport would not have pursued the business if it didn’t want it—and it wanted it very much.

The reason why became obvious yesterday when Wayport introduced Wi-Fi World, a whole new business model—designed around its partnership with McDonald’s—that it plans to use to turn the Wi-Fi retail sector into fertile territory.

For the complete story, click here.