While a number of McDonalds “restaurants” have had free Wi-Fi supplied by Telstra for a while now, they’re now planning on rolling out their own networks across a majority of their stores across the country. The rollout has already begun in NSW and the ACT, and will progress across the other states, with an expected completion date of late February 2009.

There’s no fudging around with logins or any need to actually buy anything (phew!), but there is a 50MB data limit, so no bittorrent for you. Hopefully we’ll see all the other fast food stores join McDonalds on the free Wi-Fi bandwagon.

[Free Wi-Fi - Thanks Nathan!]

That’s a good thing should this plan, which would offer downstream speeds of 768kbps for free to half the U.S. within the first four years, and 95% in the next six, actually come to fruition. T-Mobile and its ilk have threatened to sue if the FCC’s action impairs their ability to use the spectrums they purchased in any way.

Will it ever be though? I mean, who does the FCC think is going to buy something with this many expensive restrictions on it in the first place? [Mobile Tech Today]