My local Starbucks just started offering this service last week. I'm able to get it at the much lower-priced coffee shop/bakery next door. I never got texted about it though. One day I was loading a website when a new page started loading in its place asking me to enter my iPhone number. I never even got the customary WiFi detected pop-up. WiFi just took over and started loading that page. I was understandably skeptical at first, but the owner of the bakery knew about it and told me it was from the Starbucks next door. Sweet!

Sounds like the new Starbucks policy will be a boon to nearby businesses, like the bakery you mentioned. That's great for their business in bad times like these.

I think you might be right. There's a Jamba Juice on the other side of Starbuck's that I'm guessing benefits from the free WiFi too. I wonder if the next thing Starbucks locations installs are Faraday cages!

What a sweet little marketing concept this is for AT&T.

Now, how much this is going to be a real cost saving benefit to AT&T customers, it's hard to say. Verizon offers a neat package and, of course, Clearwire and others are expanding their wireless broadband. Prices are going down. But, it LOOKS like a great thing, even if where it might not be. And keeping current customers happy and talking like this is priceless.

It's not really a cost saving or benefit to me unless you factor in that I'm saving money by having my coffee at a less expensive bakery next door to Starbucks.

I guess it doesn't really matter to Starbucks though because AT&T is probably paying the bills and I'm still talking about it on an open forum which is good for AT&T.

So from the point of view of a potential customer it might entice me to buy an iPhone instead of a BB regardless of whether I spent time at Starbucks or the bakery next door. If I didn't spend much time online when I'm out and about I don't think it would make any difference at all.

But back to the cost savings to me. I'd still use my iPhone at the bakery even if I had to rely solely on 3G. I just wouldn't get as much work done.

BTW, there does seem to be a limit/cap on the number of people using WiFi concurrently because fairly often the phone switches back to 3G. Sometimes in the middle of loading a page which makes it take a lot longer to load a page.