Starbucks and WiFi?

I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?
How does this stuff work?
TIA
dot

"DotCom" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:QDFYd.36344$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
> the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
> unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
> only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
> house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
> go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?
> How does this stuff work?
> TIA
> dot

What does their website say? I seem to recall that, at least with locations
around here, they have a central network so you can use their wifi from any
location. Expensive though.

Came across an article (forget where) about a year ago regarding Starbucks
and wifi. Seemed at one location, Starbucks was upset because someone was
providing a free hotspot that overlapped into their location. Starbucks
customers, of course, were using the free hotspot. Starbucks tried to get a
court order to place an injunction against the free hotspot, but the judge
(thankfully) threw it out of court.

DotCom wrote:
> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
> the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
> unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
> only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
> house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
> go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?
> How does this stuff work?

It will depend on the access pack you purchase. For example I am in the
UK using a 240 minutes a month pack (cost £2.00). This allows access at
all BT Openzone sites - which includes all UK Starbucks sites.

I tried to use a service with Swissom recently and although I could buy
a 24 hour pack - it only applied to the location I registered from - not
much use IMO.

Why not just scan for any available network, if its not secure, just connect
to it and surf to your hearts content. No need to pay!!!

"DotCom" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:QDFYd.36344$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
> the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
> unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
> only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
> house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
> go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?
> How does this stuff work?
> TIA
> dot
>

DotCom wrote:
> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so
> pardon the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up
> for monthly unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location,
> is the service only at that location? Say I drive down the street to
> my cousin Vinny's house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have
> service? And if not, can I go to another say Starbucks near my
> cousin Vinny's and have service there? How does this stuff work?
> TIA
> dot

Starbucks doesn't actually have their own service, it's done by t-mobile.

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:27:12 GMT, "DotCom" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
>the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
>unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
>only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
>house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
>go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?

It should work at any Starbucks or T-Mobile hot spot. You're
contracting with T-Mobile and not with Starbucks. That means it will
work at Borders, Red Roof Inn, airports, Kinko's, ad nasuium.
http://www.t-mobile.com/hotspot/services_plans.htm
I blundered into one Starbucks that took both T-Mobile and IPass.
http://www.ipass.com
There may be other providers. Whether your cousin Vinny is within
range of a suitable hot spot is subject to some investigation and
testing.

>How does this stuff work?

Quite well.

--
Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 AE6KS 831-336-2558

It's a T-Mobile service - and you can sign up for a daily, monthly,
unlimited, or pat per use service - for any hot spot that uses T-Mobile.

In the Starbucks case, your T-Mobile account will work at any Starbucks that
has the WiFi / T-Mobile service.

http://www.starbucks.com/retail/wireless.asp


"DotCom" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:QDFYd.36344$(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
> the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
> unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
> only at that location? Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's
> house <S> a couple miles away, do I still have service? And if not, can I
> go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and have service there?
> How does this stuff work?
> TIA
> dot
>

DotCom <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> I haven't taken possession of my first Wi-Fi enabled laptop yet so pardon
> the stupid question but what I want to know is if I sign up for monthly
> unlimited Wifi at say Starbucks at a particular location, is the service
> only at that location?

When you get your laptop, you drive down to Starbucks, turn on the
computer, and open a web browser like Internet Explorer to any web page you
like, and it will show you a Starbucks login page. Once you satisfy that,
you should be able to connect to the Internet. If you subscribe to one of
their plans, you should be able to connect at any T-Mobile site, which
includes a lot of Starbucks, FedEx-Kinkos, Borders Books, ...
There are T-Mobile sites, and "partner" sites where the login is a little
different.
<https://selfcare.hotspot.t-mobile.com/locations/viewLocationMap.do>

You can try it for free. http://t-mobile.starbucks.com/pc/tmobile.htm
That says it expires in 2004, but the page is still there.

> Say I drive down the street to my cousin Vinny's house <S> a couple miles
> away, do I still have service?

You won't get that Starbucks anymore. Maybe Vinny has his own connection
you can borrow, or a friendly neighbor. The reliable range with you new
laptop will probably be the parking lot of Starbucks, which I prefer to the
interior, usually.

> And if not, can I go to another say Starbucks near my cousin Vinny's and
> have service there?

Any other Starbucks, FedEx, Borders ...

> How does this stuff work?

Fundamentally, there are three types of access points. Locked points that
are for private or corporate use; open points that allow various kinds of
logins for subscribers, or maybe for coffee shopt patrons or hotel guests;
and open points that are wide open with no logins, either intentionally or
unintentionally by someone who doesn't know how to lock the access point in
their house.

--
---
Clarence A Dold - Hidden Valley (Lake County) CA USA 38.8,-122.5

On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:29:07 -0000, in alt.internet.wireless , "1313"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Why not just scan for any available network, if its not secure, just connect
>to it and surf to your hearts content.

The only reason I can think of is that its illegal*.....

> No need to pay!!!

.... oh, and immoral. But that doesn't seem to bother /some/ freeloaders.


(* unless said network is a free public hotspot of course. Accessing a private
network which is insecure is no more legal than entering a house or borrowing a
car which someone forgot to lock)
--
Mark McIntyre
CLC FAQ <http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html>
CLC readme: <http://www.ungerhu.com/jxh/clc.welcome.txt>

Mark McIntyre wrote:
> On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 19:29:07 -0000, in alt.internet.wireless , "1313"
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Why not just scan for any available network, if its not secure, just
>> connect to it and surf to your hearts content.
>
> The only reason I can think of is that its illegal*.....
>
>> No need to pay!!!
>
> ... oh, and immoral. But that doesn't seem to bother /some/
> freeloaders.
>
>
> (* unless said network is a free public hotspot of course. Accessing
> a private network which is insecure is no more legal than entering a
> house or borrowing a car which someone forgot to lock)

Sorry to totally destroy your preconcieved notions and wrong headedness, but
anytime I see someone propogating that false crap, I have to at least inform
them that they are way stupid and totally WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, obviously Mark McIntyre is not only a flaming friggen idiot, but he
likes to call people names based on his stupidity and il-concieved WRONG
notions.. Come to think of it, HE'S freeloading on this free newsgroup...