Digital Trends
Loyal Starbucks customers may have been delighted to hear that the coffee chain was switching from T-Mobile to AT&T for its Wi-Fi service – and that they would be getting two free hours of Wi-Fi a day as a result – but T-Mobile was understandably not nearly as pleased with the arrangement. In fact, the company has filed suit against Starbucks over the free Wi-Fi deal, alleging it violates existing contracts.
Coffee chain Starbucks has officially rolled out Wi-Fi access to its customers via AT&T, offering up to two hours of complimentary connectivity per day in exchange for keeping a Starbucks Card active within the last 30 days and agreeing to accept up to four email messages a year from AT&T.
There hasn’t been an official announcement from any of the companies involved, but now that AT&T has officially taken over operation of Starbucks’ in-store Wi-Fi hotspots, a raft of iPhone users are reporting that they can access Starbucks Wi-Fi access points free of charge. The system just requires users enter their phone number at a login screen in order to connect to the Starbucks access points.
Back in February, coffee giant Starbucks decided to ditch T-Mobile and go with AT&T as the service provider for its in-store Wi-Fi hotspots. Now, Starbucks is officially rolling out its new Wi-Fi services with AT&T, with Starbucks stores in San Antonio being the first to get the “complete” AT&T experience. AT&T Wi-Fi service will eventually be available in all U.S. company-run Starbucks locations with Wi-Fi service; the company’s expect to bring new locations online on a market-by-market basis throughout 2008.
In a major shakeup in the Wi-Fi hotspot business, coffee giant Starbucks has picked AT&T to operate its network of more than 7,000 Wi-Fi hotspots, turning its back on a deal it’s had with T-Mobile (and, before that, MobilStar) since 2001. The deal turns AT&T in a mammoth Wi-Fi hot spot operator: the company already runs nearly 9,000 hotspots in McDonalds restaurants and other locations; the addition of Starbucks’ locations gives the network more than 15,000 hotspots.
Highlighting the company’s new partnership with Apple which will provide iPhone and iPod touch users with free Wi-Fi access to the iTunes music store, coffee retailer Starbucks is planning to give away millions of cards good for selected songs from Apple’s iTunes store.
Starbucks says it plans to give away 1.5 million downloads per day from October 2 through November 7 at more than 10,000 Starbucks locations in the United States, for a total of over 50 million songs. The cards will be redeemable on the iTunes store for a complimentary song selected by the Starbucks Entertainment division. The first free song will be Bob Dylan’s “Joker Man,” and subsequent selections are expected to dip into Starbucks’ own catalog of music content (including its recent distribution arrangement with ex-Beatle Paul McCartney) as well as highlight artists like Joni Mitchell, Joss Stone, John Mayer, Annie Lennox, and Band of Horses.
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