June 3rd, 2008
Starbucks to Serve Up Two Hours of Free Wi-Fi, Daily
By Michael Santo
Editor-in-Chief, RealTechNews
There are tons of coffee shops and cafes offering free wi-fi, and Starbucks has been feeling a little green with envy over all those people sitting there surfing the web - and buying nothing. Still, on Tuesday, Starbucks began offering free wi-fi, with some limitations.
Here’s the deal:
- Join the Starbucks Card Rewards program
- Create a free AT&T wi-fi account
- Agree to receive up to four emails per year from AT&T (bleh)
- Use the card at least once a month (purchase or a re-charge)
- Get two consecutive hours of WiFi use per day (in a single session)
If you already have a card, you can simply link a new free wi-fi account to it. Although it’s currently limited to a single session, the AT&T FAQ says:
We’re working on making this available across multiple sessions per day - stay tuned for updates.
Still, I can find plenty of unlimited access, and would prefer to support my local coffee shop rather than a huge corporation. At least unless Starbucks manages to (or tries to) drive them out of business, that is.
StarPukes Blows Chunks! says:
StarPukes - the M$ of the coffee world!!! I never spent a dime there, never will!! All you idiots who pay $4 for a cup of coffee should have your head examined!
If you buy one $4 cup of coffee from these maggots each working day 50 weeks x 5 days = 250 days x $4 -$1000 per year in their pockets!!!
Morons!
June 3rd, 2008 at 7:31 am
Keith says:
I go to Starbucks to work (when I don’t have conference calls). Mine is convenient to get to, clean, coffee is good, the staff know me now, and the atmosphere is conducive to “thought work.” It makes my work much more enjoyable, and even though I sacrifice an extra display to work there, I find myself more productive. The small premium on price is worth it to me.
But with regards to this Wi-Fi deal, there are too many hoops to jump through. It should just be… signup via a proxy page for free, and if they still want to be jerks about it like some other coffee places, expire the session every 2 hours and require another proxy login.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:45 am
Keith says:
Oh, and this WiFi deal doesn’t matter to me personally. Long ago I decided to forgo Wi-Fi in favor of broadband cell card — speed is slow and it is way too costly, but I no longer have to choose my remote establishments based on their Wi-Fi, and I can surf anywhere, even out in rural Indiana on vacation with the in laws.
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:49 am
StarPukes Blows Chunks! says:
Keith -
Obviously, you are a Sony snob and love CFLs, Priuses and Hillary!
June 4th, 2008 at 8:53 pm