Microsoft has signed a major deal with McDonald's that will allow Zune owners free Wi-Fi at thousands of McDonald's restaurants.
News.com says the McDonald's deal is significant because it adds nearly 10,000 locations where people can access the Zune Marketplace store.
The McDonald's deal is important because although every Zune has built-in Wi-Fi, the devices can only access free Wi-Fi hot spots that don't have a browser interrupt. That severely limits the types of public locations from which people can download songs wirelessly.
Many of the Zune's key new features, such as channels and "buy from FM" are most useful when Zune owners have access to a compatible Wi-Fi location. The McDonald's deal, struck with its Wi-Fi provider Wayport, adds nearly 10,000 places where people can access the Zune Marketplace store.
The Zune-McDonald's Wi-Fi deal is possible because of a three-year Microsoft deal with Wayport, Inc. - a Wi-Fi broadband internet access provide.
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