Starbucks begins offering "free" Wi-Fi — with strings attached
Tue Jun 3, 2008 2:22PM EDT
See Comments (80)
Want a couple of "complimentary" hours of Wi-Fi at your local Starbucks? Fine—but you'll need a pre-paid Starbucks card first, along with a tolerance for occasional "special offer" e-mails from AT&T. Â
So here's the deal: As of today, you can waltz into any of 7,000 corporate-owned Starbucks, fire up your Wi-Fi-equipped laptop or smartphone, and start surfing away over the store's wireless hotspot, all compliments of Starbucks and AT&T. That's a good start.
First, however (and as previously announced), you'll need a refillable Starbucks Card with at least $5 on it, and you must have used your card at least once within the last 30 days. OK, fine.
Also, you only get two hours of free surfing a day—so if your local Starbucks doubles as your office, you'll have to pay up eventually. Oh, and you must use your two hours of Wi-Fi in one sitting, not an hour here and an hour there.
Then there's the matter of setting up separate AT&T and Starbucks.com accounts online—mildly annoying, but doable.
Last but not least: You also must agree to up to four e-mails per year from AT&T (about "special offers that you might find valuable"). Now, AT&T promises not to give your e-mail address out to anyone else, and four e-mails a year doesn't quite constitute a flood. Still, given the choice, I'd pick no solicitation e-mails at all.Â
Guess that's the price you pay for "free" Wi-Fi—at Starbucks, anyway.Â
Meanwhile, still no word no word on when (or if) iPhone users will get free Starbucks Wi-Fi access. Will we get an announcement next week during Steve Jobs' Apple keynote? We'll have to wait and see.
Related:
Starbucks offers new flavor: Free Wi-Fi [USA Today]
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Comments on Starbucks begins offering "free" Wi-Fi — with strings attached
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67 Posted by davehoffmansmail on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:37PM EDT Report Abuse
It's a Win/Win. Buying a cup of coffee $1.60 for "Joe" once a month is a great deal for free WiFi. If that's too much to ask - don't go. There won't be any seats for the customers that will appreciate it.
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68 Posted by lorolei24 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:57PM EDT Report Abuse
First off...I would like to say Starbucks coffee is not all that..the smaller coffee shop or privately owned ones are great they actually use real not premixed stuff. Alls Starbucks is, is a trendy place to go to be like, "look at my cup it says Starbucks on it, aren't I so fabulous!" Well it's not the case their coffee is garbage. And with there "free" WiFi who wants to use it with so many strings attached? Luckily people need coffee to stay awake because otherwise they'd be out of business. They need to re-think the way they have everything structured because they aren't doing so well. Lowering prices and offering better quality of coffee drinks...and then possibly people will be a lot happier!
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69 Posted by ololepo on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:44PM EDT Report Abuse
The Wi-Fi — with strings attached is ridiculous! They already make so much money from me and now you want to charge more plus bringing AT&T along! Get real. I can go to other coffee shops in Seattle and will have unlimited use of Wi-Fi. I am leaving Starbucks coffee shop from today!
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70 Posted by jr_9950 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:42PM EDT Report Abuse
Starbucks is nothing but a rip-off. And it just goes to show it when they are actually attempting to charge customers for Wi-Fi use. I mean really? Gimme a break. Wi-Fi is an incentive to actually visit your restaurant, not a means of additional income for an already overpriced insult towards coffee. Since they opened a location in our town, the talk of the town seems to be how far their overpricing goes. I agree. I have never been to a Starbucks, and I never will.
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71 Posted by little_pink_umbrellas on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:54PM EDT Report Abuse
You can do this at Panera Bread with no catch...
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72 Posted by littlez_93 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:54PM EDT Report Abuse
"Meanwhile, still no word no word on..." Should fix that...
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73 Posted by nrpf22pr on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:41PM EDT Report Abuse
dosent really mater much to me since i dont realy use their wi-fi. i just come in for the coffe and the chai. i can ggo to a better place for wi-fi. since starbucks is charging, it onlymeans that theyre being affected by the economy as much as the airlines.
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74 Posted by gwhiz76 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:15PM EDT Report Abuse
try local coffee places, you will be shocked by the taste quality that you didnt know existed if you only had chains. Because of the large consumer base and need to have uniformity in their taste from store to store, Starbucks must resort to a longer roast. This longer roasting will bring out the acidic/ burnt flavor associated with Starbucks and bigger chains. But if you like aN Italian roast or a french roast fine, you are in the right place... if you want a mild, morning blend, single-source columbian, kenyian or any single-orgin... YOU WILL NOT TASTE THE FULL POTENTIAL OF THE BEAN. Its like wine, you cant treat every grape the same. Starbuck got big because the loved coffee now they love money... WORD!
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75 Posted by nighteye23 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:38PM EDT Report Abuse
LISTEN TO THE BEAN!
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76 Posted by pau_chan88artist on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:03PM EDT Report Abuse
Go to your local Life Time Fitness, sit in at the LifeCafe, most likely you will have free wi-fi, at least in Plano, Texas. You make an account and you're set. You have to log in but you can hit "remember me" and you're set!
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77 Posted by pau_chan88artist on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:03PM EDT Report Abuse
I also used to like the Coffee Frappuccino, but not anymore. They changed the flavor and now it's horrible. My brother always drags us to Starbucks though (please don't insult him- he's autistic).
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78 Posted by tuckboca on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:23PM EDT Report Abuse
It's not $4 for coffee at Starbucks. It's $4 for a reasonably serene environment with fellow reasonably educated people in a comfortable environment; oh! and fantastic over-priced coffee!!! donaldtuck@aol.com
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79 Posted by faithnoel86 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:58PM EDT Report Abuse
Starbuck's is outrageous. First of all the quality of coffee they use is awful, they disguise it with fancy names and whipped cream so people will pay $5 for a tall crappuccino . It is possibly the last coffee chain on earth that doesn't offer free Wi-Fi outright. Welcome to 2007, internet is everywhere, you can walk into a McDonald's and hook up to their free Wi-Fi. Please tell me why Starbuck's thinks this is a good idea. They can keep their so called free internet. I hope the rest of society is smart enough to go elsewhere for public internet use where you don't have a 2 hour time limit and are forced to get a re-loadable card that has to be used once every 30 days.
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80 Posted by msmontag on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:29PM EDT Report Abuse
It's free at Jack in the Box. You can even watch TV and surf at the same time. No one has ever made me buy something, but I usually do anyway.
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66 Posted by dangodoy3000 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:35PM EDT Report Abuse
With Summer days coming and people seeking AC places it makes sense to take your laptop and go to starbucks for a cool a venti green ice tea. However, there are some attachments to the Free Wi-fi that I don't like. So I'll pass....besides I'm paying 29.99 a month for Internet at home. Besides, it wouldn't be appropiate to browse porn from you laptop in a local place.