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T-Mobile Sues Starbucks Over Free Wi-Fi Deal

Posted by Soulskill on from the hot-spot-flare-up dept.

Glenn Fleishman writes "T-Mobile sent me the text of a lawsuit they filed yesterday against Starbucks. The telecom firm alleges that Starbucks didn't involve it in any discussions to launch their free loyalty program Wi-Fi service this week with AT&T. AT&T is gradually taking over hot-spot operation from T-Mobile, market by market over the course of 2008. T-Mobile told me Starbucks is essentially giving away something that isn't theirs. T-Mobile has sued to halt the two-hours-a-day of free service, and is asking for money to cover losses. This might sound like sour grapes, but T-Mobile still operates most of the network, and says that the terms to which they agreed with Starbucks and AT&T for the transition and with AT&T for bilateral roaming don't cover this situation at all. Maybe free access in exchange for buying a cup of joe every 30 days was too good to be true (this soon)."

2 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    the problem, is that starbucks rolled out this wifi thing in 2002, and instead of putting in highspeed internet in each and every starbucks, they put in a wi-fi access point that relayed the data over a cellular network. Incorrect. TMO pulled T1's into virtually SBUX for backhaul. This is one of the reasons TMO could charge a premium. Not sure where you got the cellular idea.
  2. Re:Hmmm by Ugliarch · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm not sure that's quite true. As a technician for tmobile, I have been involved in setting up many tmobile hotspots and each one has been some sort of T1 connection to the site.