Starbucks makes a big deal out of the fact that if you get a Starbucks Card you also get free wireless Internet access at Starbucks stores throughout the United States. Nice, but how do you *do it*? When I connect it says I already need an AT&T or T-Mobile account?
Though I spend a lot of my time in smaller local cafés in my neighborhood (a small latté tip to The Cup and Amante), I also spend time at Starbucks too, so know exactly what you’re talking about!
When they first introduced the free-wifi-with-a-Starbucks Card promotion, it was actually easier because there was a big graphical advert on the first page you’d see on the AT&T site that said “click here if you have a Starbucks card”, but it’s no longer. So let me step you through the process and even point out one of the snafu’s that catch many unwary users…
First off, when you get to a Starbucks location, you’ll see two wireless networks: “att” and “tmobile”. If you want to use the Starbucks free wifi setup, you need to choose “att”: the other won’t get you anywhere useful. Once you connect, try to go to a non-secure web site in your browser. I usually use “yahoo.com” for this. It’ll relay you to the AT&T wireless login page. A page that – idiotically enough – doesn’t have a “sign up for a Starbucks account” link.
Skip it.
Instead, go to Starbucks.com, where on the lower left you’ll see:
Click on “Get an AT&T Wi-Fi account”, and you’ll jump through a few explanatory ads:
Got it! Click on “Get Started Now” once or twice, then…
You need a Starbucks account, so choose that, and it opens up a new panel immediately below that prompts you to specify an account and password. Since there’s no way I have found to assign a new Starbucks card to an existing AT&T account (even though they say it’s possible), I suggest you come up with an account name that lets you step through sequential values, as I have done here with “d1taylor3” (my previous account was “d1taylor2”, for example).
Enter the account info you want and click “Next”.
Now it’s time to register your Starbucks card, and to make this easy, you’ll want to ensure you’ve used it in the last 30 days:
Enter both the main card number and, after scratching off the gray opaque cover, the PIN number too, then click “Finish”.
Now:
Here’s where there’s a bit of a snafu that’s ready to trap the unwary! If you take this all on face value you have a dilemma, because you can’t get to your email to click and confirm your new account because you can’t get online, but you can’t get online with your account until you confirm your account. Right?
Well, not quite… In fact, you need to confirm your email address at some point in the future (though I’m not sure what happens if you don’t), but if you scroll to the bottom of that page, you’ll see a much more pleasant link:
Click “Sign In”, and, after all that, you’re back where you started. But this time you actually have account credentials that should work:
Make sure you choose “AT&T WiFi” for the network from the popup and also check the Terms of Service checkbox before you click on “Log In”.
You’re online! Congrats.
Now, one more step: find the confirmation email and confirm your address:
Clicking on the link leads to:
*phew* Quite an ordeal, at least 10-15 minutes if you’re not blindingly fast at clicking and typing. I understand why Starbucks does this, but I have to say that they’d be far better served to make it *easy* for people to utilize the Internet connectivity at a Starbucks outlet. In fact, I think that they should let you just type in a number directly from an active Starbucks card on the AT&T Wifi page and let that be sufficient for you to access the Internet. All these other hoops, setting up accounts, PINs etc, strike me as make-busy work and far more complicated than necessary.
If the issue is that AT&T and Starbucks can’t figure out how to share the database of active Starbucks cards, well, that’s their problem, it shouldn’t be our problem as potential customers who want to know that they can get online with 60 seconds of work or less, not having to go through ten flaming hoops each time they want to go online…
Anyway, my rant aside, I hope this helps you figure out how to connect as quickly as possible the next time you find yourself in a Starbucks, wanting to go online.
[…] How do I get free wifi Internet at a Starbucks? – Ask Dave … […]
I noticed the same thing. AT&T and Starbucks are censoring PressTV. This is part of a much larger media effort in the build up for yet another war, with Syria this time.
Turn on the TV, whether you are watching the news or watching “David Letterman”, or even listening to “liberal” radio, we are being bambarded by a massive propaganda campaign related to this, and PressTV, understandably, is being shut out.
Check this out… this post is no longer relevant – Starbucks will begin providing free wifi access with NO registration. I guess they listened to you Dave and went a few steps further!
http://mashable.com/2010/06/14/starbucks-free-wifi/
Coincidentally, I stumbled across this post yesterday. Today, Starbucks makes this announcement. Awesome.
Thanks Dave – this is an enormous pain in the ass. Too bad, I would go to Starbucks to get some work done, but it is not worth my effort. Stupid.
Your blog was such a blessing!! You helped us to save in a time where pennies matter. Thank you and God bless you 🙂
I have been using att free wifi at starbucks for awhile, but today I noticed something strange. Google news linked me to an article from presstv.ir (Iranian Gov. news agency), but when I clicked the link I received the message “Server not found”. I thought maybe their site was down, but when I tried other Iranian sites, i.e. other sites ending in .ir, e.g. if I try Ahmadinejad’s official blog http://www.ahmadinejad.ir/ they are also blocked.
Anyone else notice this?
A while back I signed up for ATT via registered Starbucks cards. Never used it. Now I can’t recall credentials, and now can’t figure out how to retrieve them. Have tried via Starbucks site and ATT site, but no luck. Any guidance?
Bus, you raise a good point. The problem that you’re not addressing, however, is one that I’ve heard in response to this blog entry on Twitter: “holy cow, this is ridiculously complex for wifi!” Starbucks needs to continue what made it a success in the first place: focused attention on every aspect of the customer experience including wifi connectivity. If they just hand the experience off to AT&T who, as you state, sees the “free” wifi as a marketing opportunity, then customers find it a huge pain to connect and end up going elsewhere. Net result, wifi ends up losing them business, not gaining them business.
There are so many other ways they can collect demographic data in a smart manner that the clumsy registration system is an embarassment. For example, enter your active Starbucks card number on the first screen (no PIN, why do you need a rub-off PIN? I mean, it’s wifi, for goodness sakes, not a $100 coupon!) and that gives you 60 minutes. After that you have to fill out a demographic survey to get another 60 minutes, and so on, hour by hour. You want to just check your email for 30, no worries. You want to spend the afternoon there? Okay, we want to know a lot more about you…
See what I mean?
It isn’t that ATT ‘can not’ make the connection to an active Starbucks card, it is that they are using the ‘free’ aspect to gather marketing info. ATT wants YOU as a paying customer, somehow, someway
If Starbucks wanted to give you free wifi, they could just leave an open wifi station. This is ATT providing the service, in return for getting to sell you on their other services.
Think about it a moment- much of the Ma Bells actual income has been from Yellow Pages and Business accounts over the years. As ad based directories become less important on paper, those salesmen have to earn their keep otherwise. A hefty proprtion of ATT payroll is all about getting your money somehow; as the actual physical providing of the service runs itself most of the time.