Finally!: Starbucks to offer limited free wireless Internet

Starbucks is teaming up with AT&T to give Starbucks Card holders two hours of free wireless access per day beginning this spring. After that, it will cost $3.99 for a two-hour session. (Most Caribou stores offer one-hour of free access.) Also, all Starbucks partners will receive free AT&T Wi-Fi accounts allowing them to use the network in Starbucks company-operated locations offering Wi-Fi access. NOTE: There's some confusion on the comments board about what kind of card is needed -- the Duetto charge card or a regular card? Starbucks' PR department tells me that you'll only need a regular card -- the gift-card type -- for wi-fi access. (Associated Press | Read the press release)

Comments

[Amanita Barista]

That's another step in the right direction...

[STUCKINTHEDRIVETHRU...NO LONGER!!!]

THANK GOD!!!!!!!

[SoyBeanGirl]

Oh Happy Day!

:D

thank goodness they at least tied it to the Starbucks card!

[Vicki Verona]

This sucks (for me) because I still am on contract with T-Mobile until June.....oh well, its about time this happened :)

[SoyBeanGirl]

"This sucks (for me) because I still am on contract with T-Mobile until June.....oh well, its about time this happened :)"

Is it your particular store Vicki that's under contract until June? I thought all Starbucks contracts with Tmobile end at the same time.

From the press release though it doesn't sound like we partners have to already have a personal AT&T wifi account to recieve our free ones.

[Vicki Verona]

Oh no sorry for the confusion. What I meant is that I personally signed up for a T-Mobile hotspot account using my partner discount. I signed up for the 1 year contract to get a much cheaper price.

At least I wont be too far behind everyone else. This doesnt start till the Spring time and my contract is up in June

[Pat]

I wonder if they had to pay T-Mobile a $200 early termination fee?

[Pat Nerr]

Man... I was WAAAAAY off...

[Toe Tag]

T-Mobile HotSpot accounts continue, according to this paragraph in the AP story:

"Current T-Mobile HotSpot customers, who pay anywhere from $6 per hour-long session to $9.99 for a day pass to $39.99 a month for unlimited access, will get Wi-Fi access at no extra charge through an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile."

[me]

this is lovely - the t-mobile site is terribly buggy and expensive. I think out of twenty times that I tried it, I managed to buy a day pass perhaps three or four times.

but does anyone know if this will go international as well? starbucks is using t-mobile in the UK for wireless... at&t isn't around there, are they still gonna leave?

the reason I ask is that wifi in london is expensive. there are very few free places and most charge around $6/hour for a shitty connection. so if they did that there, they'd have a real barnstormer.

[seventysix [76]]

I am so happy! Thank you, Howard!

[jwilk]

Do they mean Starbucks prepaid card or Starbucks Credit Card?

[jwilk]

I need to RTFA...
"Starbucks purchase card"

[Charles]

I was wondering how they were going to do this with the T-Mobile deal. Then I read this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120274236443758887.html?mod=yahoo_hs&ru=yahoo

It makes sense with all the partnering with Apple over the iPhone. They allude to certain classes of AT&T customers getting free WiFi...I wonder if this includes iPhones.

[ekals]

Ok, I'm dumb. What's a Starbuck card?

[lux]

@pat: "I wonder if they had to pay T-Mobile a $200 early termination fee?"

Best comment of the day! :)

[Bladerunner]

Howard was with us all long:) Howard for President!!!

[Beantownsbuxbitch]

It is about time!!!!

[Elese]

As a partner I'm really excited about this. Previously I was torn because I understood why people wanted free wi-fi but my store is a business district store that is also frequented by a lot of students so our cafe is frequently full, especially in the evenings when the students start rolling in about 7pm purchase a beverage and then take their place until we kick them out at 11 or 12 depending on the night.(And my store doesn't even have T-mobile right now because we're new.) I feared that if we offered free wireless this situation would only get worse and we'd actually start losing business because you could never come in and hang out in our cafe. I think this system of using a Starbucks card to login and it having a 2 hour time limit before you have to pay is a wonderful compromise for the store and for the customer. I'm very proud of whoever thought of this one.

(Ps. I don't want the student bit to sound like a complaint against the students themselves, I love all of our regulars who come in and hang out for hours! Despite the fact that is causes a bit of a seating issue ...)

[dummy2]

Ok, I'm with EKALS...what the heck is a "Starbucks card"? Is this referring to the Duetto card?

[Laurie Ross Clements]

Limited free is not FREE

Once again, Starbucks is opening themselves up for criticism and comparsion. Another bad move, especially since they don't measure up.

Free Wi-Fi means FREE. This means access with no time limit, no provider affiliation and not having to have starbucks credit card.

Though I appreciate Starbucks addressing this issue, it's not good enough to win me back,

Laurie

i hope not, i am a partner and i cant get approval for a duetto card :(

[VKW]

I forget how many people on this site know NOTHING about Starbucks.

A "Starbucks Card" is a pre-paid gift card that can be used to purchase anything in the store. Every corporate owned store has and accepts them, and they are very popular. I'm assuming in order to get the free two hours of internet, Starbucks Card holders must register their card online, which means the holder of the card must provide Starbucks with certain information about themselves, it also protects the balance of a card if it's lost or stolen.

A Starbucks Duetto Card, which is always referred to with the "Duetto" if that's the one they're talking about, is a Visa credit card that can also function like a Starbucks card, customers can choose to charge an item bought a Starbucks to the Visa card, or use the cash balance on the Starbucks Card to pay.

got it?

[Pig-Goat]

Just to be clear - are we SURE that they mean that anyone with a Starbucks Gift Card will receive 2 hours of free wi-fi per day, or is there a possibility that they are referring to the card tied to a credit card.

(Yes, I too assume that they mean a gift card, but is there anything specifically indicating this? I STFA (skimmed the Fu*$*@# article) and I didn't come across anything)

If it is true, this really should drive home a lesson: companies LOVE when you buy gift cards. It's (temporarily) free money to them, often not fully spent even over a long period of time.

Do people really go in and spend more then 2 hours surfing the net at a coffee shop?

[Aaron]

I think this is a good plan for Starbucks. I do see how having completely free wireless could cause problems with people camping out too long in stores without buying anything. I don't think wardriving would be as much of a problem as starbucks said it would be, using that argument as their main reason to not offer free wi-fi.

I think offering two free hours per day will satisfy most people. The ones who will complain are probably the ones who would camp out if it were totally free.

I agree it's definitely nice when places offer free wireless, but people have to realize that they aren't entitled to free wireless just for going to a coffee shop. It costs the store money. Most places justify the cost because it attracts more customers. Starbucks probably doesn't need free wireless to attract more customers. Then you would just have TOO many people taking up tables and camping all day. For starbucks this makes sense.

[Laurie Ross Clements]

Freelance writers and outside salespeople love to have offices all over town that they can check or answer emails or present a proposal to a client over coffee.

Excellent. I'd get it free either way, being a partner AND an AT&T customer. Rock on.

[Aaron]

(And where are the threads for all the other big announcements today? All stores closing a few hours on the 26th for in-store training. Quality assurance. Restoring espresso or whatever... It's a big news day, we need a place to air our grievances/praise. Go ahead and delete this comment... after you give us threads to discuss these other topics.)

One must also realize that the tiered Internet approach at Starbucks will still (theoretically) be faster(better?) than completely free internet offerings elsewhere. The stores have always had an extremely high speed connection, but it has been underutilized until now. The likelyhood of these business grade systems going down and not being fixed for an extended period of time is also very low.

[Roland]

Why are you guys having such a hard time to get the information right? Uncle Howies Post at starbucks.com seems to be very clear. He talks about registered starbucks cards. These can be the regular reloadable gift cards as well as the duetto cards (combined reloadable gift card and credit card). I think this move is awesome. Free access for a while but not all day keeps people coming in but not stay at their table all day.
Now, when does this come to Canada?
Uncle Howie, please do not forget us up here in the cold north...

[Lydia]

"I agree it's definitely nice when places offer free wireless, but people have to realize that they aren't entitled to free wireless just for going to a coffee shop."

True, I suppose, excpet that so many places offer free wifi that the lack of it at Starbucks has made them look like they're behind the curve.

Will this attract a huge increase in business? Hard to say...but as someone who will choose to go to someplace with free wifi over Starbucks when I have work to do, I can say that once this is in effect, I'll choose Starbucks more often.

Re: the gift card requirement and this comment -"companies LOVE when you buy gift cards. It's (temporarily) free money to them, often not fully spent even over a long period of time" - the interest they earn on the free money is probably part of plan to pay for the wifi!

[Aaron]

Lydia, I'm with you there. What I meant is that it makes sense for Starbucks to offer this new plan of free wireless, not absolutely, unlimited FREE wireless. They definitely were way behind the curve there. To those who complain about it not being unlimited and free, see my comment above. It just wouldn't make sense for Starbucks.

[Marr3wk]

Move to the Czech Republic. Altough we have only one Starbucks here (opened January 22), the Wi-fi is free all day long. :)

I'm sorry, but this is still a far cry from free wireless. Also, the fears of people camping out all day without buying anything are far, far overblown. Spend a little time in an independent coffee shop that has actual free wireless and you will see that.

At least this will allow the indie shops to continue to differentiate themselves from the behemoth in this one very important way.

I dunno, where I live, there's a local coffee shop that's always packed because they have free wi-fi. In fact, they ask people to limit themselves to an hour during the peak times. We already have law and medical students that come and camp out in our store for hours at a time and that's without free wi-fi. There will be an increase in campers-outers, for sure. They do buy a drink. But that's usually it. One drink over 4+ hours.

[ssinatl]

I've got to be honest, I think this is brilliant. It first and foremost rewards partners with unlimited free access, something that was sorely missing with T-mobile. Second, it rewards your most loyal customers (those who have taken the time to register their cards) with free access. Third, it encourages others to in fact become loyal customers by doing the same with the Starbucks Cards.

I think Howard is continually making decisions that are bringing this company back to where it should be.

[Kokiri]

Lets all face facts here.
This isn't happening because we're not in love with T-Mobile.
I'm sure that a part of that $9 a day is ending up in our pockets.
This is happening for one reason and one reason only.
McDonalds has free wifi and will soon be schlepping their undoubtedly awful McLatte's on society.
It's all about keeping market degredation from happening.
I'm sure it's not happeing to suprise and delight, though that's a great side effect.
The timing is just a bit odd if you look at it. McYick's will be hitting around the same time this will be going on nationally.
Coincidence....This barista thinks not.

[STUCKINTHEDRIVETHRU...NO LONGER!!!]

This is the thing that I have been waiting for to attract me into Starbucks for an extended stay. When I am in a rush, I'll go to Starbucks because it's familiar, fast and I get my partner discount. But if I'm studying, I'm not going to a place where I have to pay for Wi-Fi. Good move Starbucks.

[Jacob]

When my store manager received the e-mail from uncle Howie about this..she kept screaming Yes!Yes! This is a wonderful day!!!!

Free WiFi..Shot glasses...contests...no resteaming milk...Thanks Uncle Howie, we love you.

(C'mon now...that's a lot of changes in just a month or so!)

I like the new plan... to tie it in to starbucks at least make it worth our while. Good Work!

[luvalmond]

"i hope not, i am a partner and i cant get approval for a duetto card :("

wait, sb partners can't get duetto cards??? Noooooo!!! I was just about to try and get one =(

[Cardholder]

Maybe the partner simply didn't have a good enough credit rating to get accepted for the card.

Luvalmond...Partners can get a partner edition duetto or I guess you could have the other design if you want...the previous poster ws not approved to have one I would assume due to credit issues...About 4 partners in our store have them but I do know of one who was denied but she's also got about 5 credits cards already that are all mazed out.

[Kittymoose]

So...this means partners will lose their discount with T-Mobile? This would royally suck, because I just signed my brand new contract two days ago.

[Northern Latte]

I heard a rumor about shift supervisor appreciation day coming back today...A few years ago here in New England they took all SS to Six Flags for the day.

Kittymoose -

"Current T-Mobile HotSpot customers, who pay from $6 per hour-long session to $9.99 for a day pass to $39.99 a month for unlimited access, will get Wi-Fi access at no extra charge through an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile."

[Kittymoose]

I didn't mean for the WiFi. I meant for just plain old cell service. I know that as a partner for starbucks, my activation fee was waived, and I get a small discount on my monthly service bill. Will Starbucks ending its contract with T-Mobile affect that?