Wayport is the last company standing that offered Wi-Fi back in the very early days: Their persistence has paid off. They now have over 12,000 locations in their network, including 6,300 McDonald's. The restaurant chain had a commitment of about 8,000 locations at the outset in 2004, so they're getting close to that target. (There are about 12,000 McDonald's in the U.S.)
Wayport broke 1 million connections in October and had a total of 10 million in 2005. The company has had 19 million connections from its inception, so you can do the math. For reporters who continue to insist that paid Wi-Fi is fad, that 10 million number is probably worth noting.
The McDonald's arrangement continues to be interesting to me because I hailed it when it was first announced back in 2004 after a competition among Wayport, Cometa, and Toshiba. Toshiba got out of the hotspot business and Cometa shut down within weeks of losing the McDonald's contract.
The model for McDonald's hotspots is called Wi-Fi World, and it involves aggregators and resellers paying a fixed rate per location per month for the portfolio of hotspots regardless of user session. Wayport speculated back in 2004 that an MSO (a multiple cable systems operator like Comcast) could jump into the hotspot business by offering it to all customer at an incredibly low rate. This is why SBC can afford to have a $1.99 introductory rate for unlimited Wi-Fi among its own FreedomLink locations (managed by Wayport), Wayport's regular locations, and Wayport's Wi-Fi World locations.
Here we are in 2006, and SBC continues to be the only reseller. However as today's press release notes, McDonald's has found many other operational and customer efficiencies out of having a Wi-Fi network in place. And Nintendo's deal with Wayport and McDonald's allows its Nintendo DS users free access to that network of hotspots. Clearly, money is changing hands, and McDonald's is probably happy to see an uptick in gamers in their locations buying food.