Starbucks Ditching T-Mobile, Adopting AT&T for Hotspots
February 11th, 2008 (7:56am) Jason Harris 12 CommentsTweet This
If you’re a nomadic worker, one of the modern marvels of today’s technology is being able to hop on a wi-fi hotspot and get some work done. This is why having a T-Mobile hotspot account has been so great for coffee-house workers. Starbucks are virtually everywhere, especially in the United States. Since 2001, T-Mobile has been the hotspot provider for Starbucks.
Not any more, as Glen Flieshman has pointed out. T-Mobile has been dropped by Starbucks in favor of AT&T as their wi-fi provider. So now in addition to McDonalds, AT&T subscribers can add thousands of Starbucks to the number of locations they can get online and work.
The good news is that just for having a Starbucks card, you get 2 free hours of wi-fi a day. Presumably this means that for just by making a purchase with your Starbucks card, you get 2 free hours of net access.
Additionally, AT&T lowered the price to $4 a day for a two hours of access, compared to T-Mobile’s $6-10 per hour charge. AT&T is going to charge $20/month for unlimited access to wi-fi, the same as T-Mobile’s rate. If you have AT&T DSL, you receive wi-fi access for free as a part of your monthly DSL rate.
For more info, check out AT&T’s press release.
Update: As Kevin pointed out in the comments, T-Mobile wi-fi customers will still be able to get online in Starbucks, under an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile. The details can be found in the press release mentioned above.
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Jason, they didn’t ditch T-Mo, they’re still keeping that service for T-Mo customers with a special arrangement between T-Mo and AT&T.: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=826
Hey Kevin..thanks for commenting. I never said in my post that T-Mobile users were out in the cold, I just stated that Starbucks has switched to AT&T for their wi-fi hotspot service provider.
However, to avoid confusion, I added an update to the post.
AT&T? Sounds like this might be related to Starbucks partnerships with Apple. Free wifi for iphone/itouch users coming soon?
AT&T’s wifi is only free for their business class DSL customers at the top tiers of service. If you’re a residential subscriber or use the entry-level business packages, you can add unlimited wifi for $2 per month.
Hmm. But what about the poor shmucks who aren’t T-Mobile customers, but signed that yearly contract for $29.99 a month to access HotSpot services. What happens to them? Will T-Mobile still expect them to pay $29.99 per month for a service that AT&T is offering (ostensibly) for free?
I just moved and my new neighborehood is only serviced by AT&T. They did not tell me I would only be able to have the basic speed as my fastest speed option. am with T-mobil and pretty happy , but this new deal with Starbucks has me looking at making a change with my T-Mobile contract coming up to expire. If AT&T wireless will start offering a better airtime for the money deal , I would switch , so that I coud bundle my services , and save some sweet coin. Good article.
Just when I was looking at dropping AT&T DSL this news comes out. Guess AT&T will keep me as a DSL customer after all.
Cool. Now ATT can violate the federal wiretapping laws and report to the government anything you do from Starbucks, too.