The following article is reprinted from PC World’sGlenn Fleishman on Hardware blogat thePCW Business Center .
A sharp - eyed blogger and praseodymium military personnel in San Antonio spotted what turn out to be the installation of the first AT&T networked Starbucks near the telecom giant ’s military headquarters . Alan Weinkrantz , who has no business organisation connexion with AT&T , happened to detect the completion of the first conversion of a Starbucks from T - Mobile’sHotSpot brand to AT&T Wi - Fi . Starbucks herald that they had opt toswitch providersin February 2008 , and that “ 2nd quarter ” would see the first marketplace move over , with the meshwork completed by the end of 2008 .
Read more about the Starbucks - AT&T deal at Macworld.com .
For business traveller , this move could relieve money . T - Mobile was the only hot - spot connection of any scale in the U.S. that did n’t have a roaming kinship with standardised connection , and only bring with one domesticated aggregator : iPass . This meant that frequent travelers needed to either have an iPass subscription through their party to employ Starbucks without pay extra , or needed a T - Mobile HotSpot subscription , which track down from $ 20 to $ 40 per calendar month depending on term of dedication and whether you had a articulation design . Their day pace is $ 10 and their hourly charge per unit $ 6 . ( I wrote up iPass’new service architectural plan for individualsa few week ago . )
AT&T ’s attack with Starbucks is pretty different . First , all AT&T fiber customers and most DSL client get free , inexhaustible use of the Starbucks fix in addition to about10,000 other locations — mostly McDonald’s — in AT&T’sso - called home meshing . ( DSL client must have at least a 1.5 Mbps downstream connection to qualify for free Wi - Fi . ) All remote line of work users also gain access at no cost above their current plans . That ’s 12 million home and 5 million business enterprise users aright there . ( Home users can pay $ 10 per month to get hotel and non - AT&T - operated airport access plus 53,000 hot billet outside the U.S. )
For those who are n’t in AT&T ’s thrall already , you’re able to get up to two hours of consecutive free approach every daylight by putting value on a Starbucks stored - value lineup , and either using it or adding monetary resource to its counterweight at least every 30 Day .
AT&T already had giving roaming agreements with other supplier and aggregators , and they ’ve extended that with this flock . T - Mobile signed a five - twelvemonth roaming relationship , so existing T - Mobile customer just continue to apply Starbucks , which is bang-up , and non - riotous . Boingo Wirelessusers also gain access to Starbucks as part of their $ 22 per calendar month unlimited U.S. and $ 39 per month ecumenical architectural plan .
Everyone else can devote $ 20 per month for acess to all 17,000 domesticated locations and 53,000 international locations that AT&T aggregates into its Premium meshing .
With one Starbucks converted , that ’s 7,000 or so to go , but we ’ll belike see markets open up in the next few weeks , and I imagine the quietus of San Antonio and all of Seattle — Starbucks ’ dwelling house — are favourable top of the list .
And here ’s one more tip : If you ’re an AT&T customer or roaming partner already , you’re able to use your login at any current Starbucks hot spot . Look for an AT&T logotype in the upper - ripe corner . Click it , then come in your login details . Very nice of Starbucks , T - Mobile , and AT&T to ease the transition from one provider to another .
