for free wi-fi. I would absolutely sit through some commercials.

If they're non-invasive like those they have before videos, then I guess they should be fine.

No because I'd just use Edge on my iPhone. If I were in a hurry enough to want to find wifi, I definitely wouldn't want to wait for commercials.

YES!

I have Edge on my iPhone but seriously now.. who can pick up coverage everywhere? I get Edge coverage in Tesco's on the other side of town but NOWHERE in the city centre.

Bizarre much? =)

I use edge if there is only Pay WiFi, but if it were free I'd definitely sit thru commercials. I just ignore them anyway. And lets face it, Edge can be slow sometimes - Wifi is much better. And Edge drains the battery - whereas I sat out at the pool on vacay and used my phone almost the whole day (off and on) with free wifi and it hardly touched my battery level.

However I do think that because of the iPhone, free wifi will become more commonplace since the iPhone and future competitors make the internet so much more portable than even a laptop. At least, i hope so.

I don't really need WiFi so right now, i don't really care...

I don't think I would use it on my iPhone but could suffer through if I was desperate for wifi on my machine. This isn't anything I would do for my home network though, my time is valuable.

For free wi-fi I'd watch a 20 blurb about something to try to get me to buy it. I'd prolly go out and buy it too. I'm a sucker like that.

But only if the writers get some money from it!

I wouldn't mind an advertisement if I can get free wi-fi use at an establishment. One hand washes the other, so they say.

One hand washes the other, so they say...

For this to work, the advertisement revenue has pay for the WiFi costs - the network gear, installation costs, connection to the Internet, equipment upgrades, customer care, network operation centers, repair service, and a small amount of profit for the provider. And now that you don't want to pay for it directly, you also have to involve an advertisement agency, their profit, the ad, the talent.. yada-yada

Someone watching these ads has to buy enough product(s) from these ads to cover all of these costs above for his wi-fi use and for all the moochers that don't want to pay for their own way directly.

If you think about it, ad-based WiFi has to be more expensive on average for all involved than pay as you go or venue provided (where the venue hires a company to do everything and hides the cost in the product or service they sell). For example, at Panera bread, WiFi is "complementary" to their customers. But they hand the work of running their data services over to a company called Savvis. The costs to pay for Savvis are buried in your bread and latte.

There is no FREE lunch. Someone has to pay.