By Andrew Tait

McDonald's has completed its long awaited introduction of wifi services, across its 115 branches in Beijing.

Such a service has been available for a long time at its restaurants around the world, and the move to introduce the service in China was first confirmed in January, when McDonald's China Vice President Miu Qin announced a plan to begin the company's "restaurant's image upgrading." This included upgrading 90% of stores in Beijing so they would be able to offer wifi internet.

Citizens who list on the Internet places where wifi signals are available, first noted the appearance of wifi at McDonald's in Beijing in March.

Unlike Starbucks stores however, where users simply input a freely given password to gain access, McDonald's uses a system requiring real name and ID registration before use, as well as imposing a half hour limit on free access, according to a report in Tuesday's Legal Mirror.

In contrast, US branches of McDonald's began offering free and unlimited access to its customers from January.

But, despite media reports to the contrary, calls to McDonald's branches across Beijing suggested that the implementation of the charge and real name registration might not yet be complete.

Global Times called 7 different outlets, and all confirmed they now have wifi access available for customers. But when asked how exactly the service was being applied, no one was entirely sure.

The manager of McDonald's in SanLiTun Village said his staff hadn't been fully briefed on how wifi access would be implemented. He added that charges would be eventually introduced, but there was currently no limit on how long customers could use the service at one sitting.

Calls to McDonald's Corporate headquarters went unreturned.