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T-Mobile USA Sues Starbucks Over Free Wi-Fi Service
T-Mobile USA has launched a lawsuit against the coffee chain, Starbucks alleging that company has not held to an agreement over their Wi-Fi service. T-Mobile has provided a chargeable Wi-Fi service to the US branches of Starbucks for the past seven years, but it was recently announced that the contract would terminate at the end of this year and be replaced by a service from AT&T.
Under the transition agreement, T-Mobile says that it retained exclusive rights to offer Wi-Fi services in Starbucks branches until Jan 4th 2009 - however, AT&T has already started to offer a Wi-Fi service which includes free access for a limited period of time for Starbucks customers. As this undercuts T-Mobile's chargeable service and the company is still providing the service it is suing for unspecified losses.
"The conduct of Starbucks has caused T-Mobile monetary damages and such damages will continue should Starbucks continue its breaching conduct," T-Mobile said in the legal papers.
AT&T offered plans which include up to two hours free access for a customer who purchases a coffee along with free access for its own landline and mobile subscribers.
Under the transition plans, it also appears that AT&T is reusing T-Mobile equipment, with the login script bouncing between the two company's services. It has not been disclosed if T-Mobile has sold its hardware to AT&T, leased it to them or if there was a Build-Operate-Transfer (Bot) type agreement with Starbucks.
According to a report from iPass, the Wi-Fi roaming service provider - the most popular Wi-Fi cafe in the USA is also the largest Starbuck's cafe in Texas, located at the intersection of Cole and Lemmon in Dallas.
In unrelated news - a lawsuit against Starbucks in New York after the company spilt hot coffee on a customer had the settlement reduced from $301,000 to $75,000. The customer, Alice Griffin said she would have settled for medical costs - plus free coffee for three years.
Posted to the site on 8th June 2008