Starbucks has just announced that they ’ll be offeringfree Wi - Fi at all stores nationally on July 1 , no matter what steel of laptop , tablet , smartphone , or computer you may have . Access will be offer through a one - chatter logon portal that brings Starbucks customer unrestricted accession to the Web at large , just like many other coffee bars .
Less than two years ago , Starbucks rolled out a programme to volunteer free Wi - Fi for AT&T mobile devices ( such as the iPhone ) and customers of AT&T DSL . It was a nice perquisite , but customers who want to use Starbucks Wi - Fi with a laptop or a tablet have had little resort but to log on through anAT&T Wi - Fi accountthat provide two hours of free Wi - Fi access per day and costs $ 4 for every additional two hours after that .
But this is n’t just a matter of Starbucks catch up to the rest of the coffee bar nation . Starbucks ’s Stephen Gillett toldMashablethat he has bigger plans for the troupe ’s Wi - Fi . Its hotspots will finally take all Starbucks Wi - Fi users to the new Starbucks Digital internet , plan for release after in the fall of 2010 .
In cooperation with Yahoo , the Starbucks Digital connection will pull in contentedness from local - aware services like Foursquare as well as pay - wall services like the Wall Street Journal and Zagat . This will allow Starbucks customers to try these services , which those companies no doubt hope will eventually translate into paying customers at home .
One downside , however , is that AT&T ’s recently revamped data plans for the iPad and iPhone offered free access to AT&T hotspot , which include Starbucks . You could fence that the value proposal has dropped a bit , though ultimately those users are still getting free Wi - Fi , so perhaps that ’s neither here nor there .
It ’s a skillful via media for the Starbucks conglomerate to offer well service for their client . Hopefully , the transition wo n’t be nearly as rocky as the last time .
