Starbucks to Offer Free Wi-Fi With AT&T

Starbucks has joined with AT&T to provide free and paid wireless Internet service for its customers in more than 70,000 of its coffee shops nationwide. AT&T customers can access free Internet at Starbucks anytime.

Starbucks earlier used to provide Wi-Fi services with T-Mobile on an hourly or monthly paid subscription basis. But now Starbucks wants to offer both subscriptions free as well as paid Wi-Fi services options with AT&T.

With this Starbucks-AT&T partnership, customers can use Wi-Fi free for the first two hours and afterward either pay $3.99 per two-hour session or $19.99 per month. If the customer is already subscribing to AT&T Internet service, they can use it free at all times at Starbucks.

The monthly membership with AT&T also includes any of 70,000 AT&T’s hot spots worldwide. You can find the location of the nearest AT&T Wi-Fi hot spot here.

By joining with AT&T, Starbucks ends its existing relationship with T-Mobile.

It is a good move but Starbucks should make Wi-Fi free, like many coffee stores. This will provide healthy revenues for both Starbucks and AT&T. If you search the Web, there are plenty of coffee shops that provide free Wi-Fi internet services or you can try Jwire.com which provides a list of free Wi-Fi hotspots worldwide. They also have a Widget that you can access in your desktop to find the nearest free Wi-Fi hotspot.