the great free cafe wifi debate : starbucks
A great thread has developed over at Starbucks Gossip concerning free internet service in cafes [#]. The post was about Starbucks’s defense of their partnership with t-mobile for fee-based wifi in the face of independent stores and upstart roll-your-own FON, who offer neighbors a free router in exchange for broadcasting their signal to nearby cafes and selling internet on the cheap:
“Some establishments may choose to provide free wireless access, but we believe the T-Mobile HotSpot service provides a much more rewarding experience by offering internet access in the comfort of Starbucks coffeehouses in far more locations” [advertising age]
Remarkably, rather than laughing the pricey “rewarding experience” argument out of court, a lot of commenters support the Starbucks policy. Some argue that it helps the smaller shops to attract a crowd of people looking for cheap office space, others hate the laptop brigades that camp out at places with free service and love Starbucks for keeping the freeloaders away so that they can grab a quick drink and find a place to sit for a short time.
Personally, I find the coffee experience at many of our local cafes rewarding enough and the open wifi is a good bonus. What do you think? Have you signed up for your free FON router to spread the internet to your sidewalk?
Stabucks sucks in the first place (I worked there for 1 1/2 years, so I know this to be a fact) and paying for internet sucks as well. OTS, but isn’t Seattle in the process of having city-wide wi-fi?
BTW, let all those who worship Starbucks because they think it makes them trendy, hip, or whatever go and pay for their wi-fi when people like Josh and myself get free wi-fi and a cup of coffee that doesn’t suck and has personality (as in one that does not come off an assembly line).
Maybe it really IS fair, isn’t it?
One thing I like about all Starbucks using Tmobile is that no matter where you go, if you need internet you can depend on Starbucks. I was just in Europe and brought my laptop so I could check on email and do some work while on vacation. It was nice to know I could walk into any starbucks and use the internet.
I can definitely see the benefits to subscription-based WiFi for frequent travelers, but for those of us who need access occasionally rather than regularly, it’s just another monthly expense that I’d rather not incur.
I can say the same for Starbucks, too. When traveling, it’s always a good, safe, go-to for decent coffee when you’re not willing to dig around to find an exceptional local cafe in an unfamiliar city.
The international aspect of T-Mobile (it’s actually Deutsche Telekom) is theoretically a big advantage for business travelers, but: Proving that big telecom never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, you now get hit with *roaming* fees when you try to use your WiFi account abroad with many carriers. And we’re talking like $0.20/min. That’s like cellphone-style pricing. Again, those expensing it won’t care, but it’s really highway robbery to somehow claim routing IP packets over the Atlantic is worth that kind of money.