Cheaper Wi-Fi Access at Starbucks
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Going online at a Starbucks over a Wi-Fi connection will cost less money or will even be free, thanks to a new deal between the coffee chain and AT&#038;T.
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Would you like a corporate login with that espresso? Hackers have refined a new technique for breaking into Wi-Fi networks protected by the aging (and increasingly misnamed) Wireless Equivalent Protocol.â¦
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Overseas WLAN access at no extra charge - for now
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Forget finding an Internet cafe. For less than what it costs to build a small library, city officials believe they can turn all 135 square miles of Philadelphia into the world's largest wireless Internet hot spot.
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(InfoWorld) - The sun came out for EarthLink's Philadelphia Wi-Fi network on Thursday even as prospects forÂ its San Francisco projectÂ remain shrouded in fog. Wireless Philadelphia, a nonprofit group formed by the city of Philadelphia, has approved the 15-square-mile Wi-Fi test network EarthLink built, opening the door for the operator to finish building out a 135-square-mile network covering the city. The approval comes just a month afterÂ EarthLink announced it would scale back its city Wi-Fi initiative, focusing on existing and large cities for the rest of the year. The company has seven or eight cities under contract now and is negotiating with five more, Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing Cole Reinwand said last week. It decided to stagger its Wi-Fi expansion to conserve resources, he said. Residents can already use the 15-square-mile network in Philadelphia. The full network is expected to be complete in the third quarter. EarthLink is financing, building, and managing the network and will share revenue with Wireless Philadelphia, which will offer cut-rate access for low-income people. For six months, customers of a 1MbpsÂ service will pay an introductory rate of $6.95 per month, which bumps up to $19.95 thereafter. A faster 3Mbps service is available for $9.95 for the first six months and $21.95 after that. City parks will have free access, and low-income residents can sign up for service at $9.95 per month, before promotions. Customers can also pay for service on an hourly, daily or three-day basis. The Philadelphia Wi-Fi network is notable because when announced, it set off a storm of controversy that resulted in a Pennsylvania law requiring municipalities to receive approval from incumbent telecommunications operators before building Wi-Fi networks. The law was created after incumbents complained that by financing Wi-Fi networks, cities were building networks that would compete with their businesses. The San Francisco project, which has drawn attention partly because of Google's planned involvement as provider of a free citywide service, has run into fierce opposition from activists as well as some local elected officials. The proposed contract is scheduled for a vote by the city and county's board of supervisors in July.
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Starbucks Corp is testing $1 coffee and free refills in its Seattle outlets as the global gourmet coffee chain grapples with slower consumer spending and rising competition from fast-food rivals.
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A startup says it can give subway riders wireless Internet access that's faster than most home broadband in the U.S.
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Customers of Sprint Corp. and SBC Communications Inc. will be able to use both companies' wireless Internet connections with less hassle under a reciprocal deal announced Friday.
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Starbucks and AT&T said they would start offering a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in most of Starbucksâs American shops, beginning this spring.
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At any Starbucks, it's not uncommon to see people with their laptops - finishing homework, or catching up on e-mails. Many are taking it a step further. They use their computer to make a statement.
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AT&T on Monday announced that its broadband Internet subscribers can now access any of its 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the United States free of charge. The company offers Wi-Fi at airports, McDonalds restaurants, Barnes & Noble bookstores, coffee shops and sporting venues.
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Music, that is. Thanks to the new iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, the editors at E! Online find it all but irresistible to indulge in the guilty pleasure of impulse music buying. âAs long as youâre at a hot spot, you can click on the new Wi-Fi widget for your iPhone or iPod touch and get access to Appleâs music library at the usual 99 cents per song.â
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Meraki Networks&#39; plan to cover San Francisco with free Wi-Fi, with residents&#39; help, could be a way around the political and business barriers some municipal wireless projects have run into.The startup, partly funded by Google, believes it will succeed&#160;where EarthLink and Google did not: Building Wi-Fi access throughout San Francisco at no cost to the city. It expects to finish by year&#39;s end, filling the whole city with 1Mbps coverage.The catch is that Meraki is footing the whole bill on this project so that&#160;it can learn how to roll out such networks for profit elsewhere. The good news, if the plan works, is that it could do so for less than $5 million, lower than the cost many other municipal wireless projects have run into. That&#39;s partly because of intelligence in access points and software, making the network more robust with fewer nodes, according to Meraki spokeswoman Erika Shaffer.Meraki will build the backbone of its network with solar-powered rooftop access points and fill out its coverage with smaller repeaters to sit in windows or on balconies. Both will be designed and built by Meraki and provided free to residents and businesses that agree to house the gear on their property in return for better coverage. All the nodes will be meshed, so Meraki won&#39;t have to get wired broadband links everywhere its access points go.The idea has potential in developing countries with little broadband, where Meraki sees its biggest market, but also in highly wired cities such as San Francisco, analysts said.A key advantage is that by asking users instead of the city for mounting rights for its gear, Meraki will bypass the rancorous political fights over contract terms like the one that slowed down EarthLink&#39;s initiative last year. But seeking volunteers also makes sure that however fully Meraki has actually covered the city by the end of the year, it is pretty sure to have coverage where people actually want it.&quot;You know exactly where your coverage needs to be, because someone just asked you for a repeater,&quot; said IDC analyst Godfrey Chua.Meraki believes it won&#39;t have any trouble getting people to host repeaters in their homes, based on its existing test networks in parts of San Francisco, Shaffer said. There are about 500 repeaters today, and about 40,000 people have used the network, she said.Another problem that would seem to solve itself, assuming the network and distribution system run smoothly, is the difficult issue of indoor coverage, said Craig Settles, an independent municipal network analyst at Successful.com. EarthLink&#39;s network was to be built largely on streetlights and electricity poles, which are well suited to mobile outdoor coverage, but not so good for providing home broadband to residents who can&#39;t afford wired alternatives, Settles said. Meraki&#39;s small repeaters are designed for indoor coverage in the home where they&#39;re located as well as to flesh out the whole network.On the San Francisco network, which Meraki will treat as a research and development cost, the company will test advertising as a possible revenue source for future deployments. When it approaches service providers that want to charge for access, it will also offer a billing system. Meraki has trials going on today with carriers in developing countries, Shaffer said.In places where most people don&#39;t yet have broadband, Meraki&#39;s approach could be an attractive low-cost alternative, analysts said. However, WiMax, which requires far fewer base stations than Wi-Fi because it has a longer range, also has relatively low costs and is already a competitor in those markets, Chua said.&quot;I doubt that Wi-Fi would be the dominant access medium in emerging markets,&quot; Chua said.
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Starbucks Corp. and AT&T Inc. will start offering a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in most of the international coffee retailer's U.S. shops, beginning this spring.
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SEATTLE - Starbucks will raise its beverage prices by 11 cents a cup on average starting Oct. 6, the world&#39;s largest coffee-shop chain said Tuesday.
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SBC Communications Inc. (SBC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it would offer access to its network of 3,900 public Wi-Fi Internet access points to its high-speed Internet subscribers for $1.
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Business & money: Troubled coffee chain Starbucks going back to basics by testing a cut-price brew costing only $1