Starbucks drops Tmobile and goes with AT&T AND free 2 hours of browsing, iPhone access?

Quincy Pince-Nez
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February 11, 2008
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Big news day today - especially for us coffee addicts.  Starbucks has announced  that it was dropping its T mobile wifi access points around the world and going with AT&T.  The new deal will give free wireless access to Starbucks card holders and AT&T broadband users and charge about half of what T mobile charged for WiFi access. $3.99/visit or $20/month.

Now this deal has Apple written all over it for a number of reasons - not just because taking your  MacBook to Starbucks will be a whole lot cheaper.  Starbucks and AT&T are also iPhone partners.  Starbucks sells it's music to iPhone and iPod Touch users through its Wifi Music store (now run by AT&T).   AT&T is obviously the carrier for the iPhone.

iPhone's in Europe are bundled with the carriers wifi hotspots - well they are with T mobile and O2.  Orange notsomuch.

We expect a AT&T-iPhone Wifi access deal to be announced at the next big event.  Free iPhone Access at Starbucks sound good to anyone else?

 

Comments (9)

Chelle (not verified) | February 11, 2008 - 10:04am

Sounds lovely, but didn't Starbucks also just announce that they're closing a ton of their shops around the US? A sad day for T-mobile.. since that's the carrier I have my iPhone with anyway.

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | February 11, 2008 - 10:18am

Important sidenote is, that Starbucks will not switch worldwide to AT&T. At least, the press release only states changes in the U.S.
I'm living in Germany and I guess T-Mobile will remain the AP-provider for the largest part of Europe. No surprise, since T-Mobile is one of the biggest players in Europe.

Anonymous Coward (not verified) | February 11, 2008 - 12:34pm

In my town Starbucks is the only coffee place that charges for Wifi. Getting it cheaper there still doesn't sound like a deal.

Drez (not verified) | February 11, 2008 - 1:53pm

I wrote Starbucks a while back. Why would I pay $5 per coffee and $10 for wi-fi, when I can sit a Panera Bread and buy one $1.50 coffee, refill all day AND get free wi-fi? Starbizucks aint that good!

Matt (not verified) | February 12, 2008 - 9:32am

Being an employee of Starbucks, I can tell you with 100% certainty that Starbucks is not closing "tons" of stores.  For 2008, Starbucks is planning to open about 1100 new retail stores in the U.S. (down 34% from last year's growth rate), and shut down 100 underperforming stores (which isn't really all that many in the big scheme, if you think about how many stores there are).

They are focusing more on international growth this year than U.S. growth, and focusing more on the core values of the company.

Anyways, just wanted to clear that up based on Chelle's comment.  Also, this is a good thing; the TMobile internet access SUCKED. Customers were constantly complaining of dropped connections and how much money they were paying for it (they were expensive).  Look forward to this!

garydr (not verified) | February 12, 2008 - 1:26pm

In the story it says "The new deal will give free wireless access to Starbucks card holders ." What do they mean by a "card holder?" What kind of card? A prepaid coffee card?

Matt (not verified) | February 13, 2008 - 12:58am

No it means if you have a Starbucks card (given to you as a gift, one that you loaded yourself, etc.) with money on it, then you will get the 2 hrs. free access per day.  All you would have to do is enter your starbucks card # on the main page and it will log you in.

Matt (not verified) | February 13, 2008 - 12:59am

Edit: so yeah, I guess you could look at it as a "prepaid card".  Sorry, just saw that last sentence.

Wedding Favors (not verified) | January 12, 2009 - 8:53am

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