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In a complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, T-Mobile says Starbucks “secretly” developed a plan with AT&T to provide Wi-Fi at its cafes, despite an exclusive partnership with T-Mobile. T-Mobile, which is seeking unspecified damages, alleges the companies broke an agreement over how Starbucks should transition the service from T-Mobile to AT&T, according to Reuters.
Sour grapes in your grande frappuchino?
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Hmm.. Actually sounds legit to me. T-Mobile helped fund the wifi access to expand its service and share the profits – and now Starbucks is giving it away to someone else?
Maybe I’m missing something.
>>T-Mobile helped fund the wifi access to
>>expand its service and share the profits
What was the nature of that “funding”? Presumably, Starbucks bought a $50 WiFi router for each store and a started a T-Mobile account, and split the booty with T-Mobile.
Now T-Mobile’s pissed because they’re offering crippleware access to people silly enough to pay four bucks for a cup of coffee?
Oh well. I’ll get my coffee and my WiFi somewhere else, in any case.
Why anyone would defend one corrupt multinational crime syndicate, Starbucks, over another corrupt multinational crime syndicate, T-Mobile, is beyond me. Then again, the bloggers on this site are certainly consistent in their downright schizophrenic ideology.
Anyway, if Starbucks breached the contract, they’re at fault. Seems pretty cut and dried to me.
Sean said
Hmm.. Actually sounds legit to me. T-Mobile helped fund the wifi access to expand its service and share the profits – and now Starbucks is giving it away to someone else?
Maybe I’m missing something.
Yeah, the consistent stupidity and lack of quality in the blogging done on this site.
Hey, wanna pop some popcorn with your cellphone?
I found this great picture of T-Mobile:
T-mobile is pissy because they’ve been relegated to anonymity. The starbucks account was their only real win here in the states.
AT&T has kicked their ass in every arena, and t-mobile is now pouting. This case will be dismissed.
I’m starting to like the new AT&T
Maybe JPV ought to consider his own poor quality blogging and comments before commenting on others…
Okay…. So here’s what happened:
T-Mobile expends $$$ building out an infrastructure for the wifi at thousands of Starbucks.
Starbucks says they are switching to AT&T.
Starbucks does NOT switch to AT&T. Instead, they run a layer on top of T-Mobile’s system to charge people for access (or gives 2 hours free to Starbucks card holders). AT&T is using T-mobile hardware and data services.
From a poster on Gizmodo: “If you watch redirects on the address bar of your browser bouncing from service2.hotspot.t-mobile.com to secure.sbc.com and back and forth during the signon/login process using the ATT SSID [you will see] that it is T-mobile’s infrastructure connecting you to the interwebs.”
I was curious to see if this is what happened at my local Starbucks, so I went out and gave it a try. He is absolutely correct.
Essentially, AT&T is committing theft of service from T-Mobile. Kind of like someone wardriving to find unsecure hotspots and then using it for their own ends.
So T-Mobile has a very good case here.
9-No, they don’t.
Your comment about at&t committing theft of service proves your anti-at&t sentiments are true.
If starbucks’ contract with t-mobile had ended, then it’s within their right to move on to a better carrier, which they have done.
Starbucks and at&t teaming up to squash miserable little t-mobile? This will be fun to watch 🙂
#10, Brian,
Your comment about at&t [sic] committing theft of service proves your anti-at&t [sic] sentiments are true.
The contract ended. Yet Starbucks is still using T-Mobile’s equipment. AT&T may have taken the contract, but they provided hardware to only two stores so far. THAT is why T-Mobile is suing. This has nothing to do with anti AT&T sentiment and everything to do with theft of telecommunication services.
Even if the roles were reversed, AT&T would still rank as an evil company for its role in Bush’s Wiretapping Scandal.
>>Yet Starbucks is still using
>>T-Mobile’s equipment.
What, the $50 WiFi routers?
#12, Mustard,
T-Mobile bought them last year before Best Theft and Circumstantial City put them on sale. They were $59.95 each.
8)
Hate to see another law suit but lawyers have to eat too. However no sympathy for either of these jokers. Starbucks WiFi was a joke. Stop at a mom & pop shop and jump on WiFi free and easy … Starbucks you had to pay for and jump through hoops. It’s somewhat satisfying to see them get bit by it.
Uh…who cares? I live in Seattle (West Seattle) and nearly every coffee shop in the city has free WiFi, plus as an added bonus, better coffee than Starbucks. I don’t mean to bash Starbucks, they’re ok, but I can think of nearly a dozen better local mom & pop shops with free WiFi. This is why I’ve never used Starbucks T-Mobile nonsense. Who pays for WiFi at coffee shops? I mean really…