Feature: Wireless Surfing at Starbucks

The other day, a chubby-cheeked 10-year-old boy approached me as I worked on a notebook in Starbucks. "Excuse me," he asked timorously. "Where did you get your Dell computer?"

The answer seemed so obvious, it made me wonder why he asked. "From Dell," I answered. He pondered that bit of information as I sipped my nonfat Cinnamon Spice Mocha. Then he summoned the courage to pose what was obviously his real question: "Are you online right now?"

Indeed I was. At T1 speeds, no less--fast enough so that, just a moment before, I had watched a Sopranos video clip at HBO.com. Believing it unwise to expose an impressionable youth to the antics of Tony Soprano, I turned my computer around so he could watch as I launched EBay. His reaction was nothing less than I expected: "Cool!"

Memo to Starbucks: Your recent wireless networking advertising blitz has clearly penetrated the prepubescent population. But your target market--mobile computer users like me--are just as likely to be impressed, more or less.

From MobileStar to T-Mobile HotSpot

In late August, Starbucks officially launched the T-Mobile HotSpot network in partnership with Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile's parent company, and Hewlett-Packard. The high-speed Internet access service is currently available in 1200 U.S. Starbucks locations, with an additional 800 expected to come online by year's end. It's also available in some airports, hotel lobbies, and other locations.

The service isn't exactly new, however. T-Mobile HotSpot began life as MobileStar, which rolled out to some 700 locations (including airports, hotels, and many Starbucks locations) in the United States before the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001 and its assets were acquired by German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom AG.

Choppy Launch, Smooth Sailing

To use T-Mobile HotSpot, you need a notebook or PDA equipped with Wi-Fi networking either built-in (which many notebooks have) or via a PC Card that costs about $70 to $80. T-Mobile HotSpot service begins at $2.99 for 15 minutes; monthly local ($30) and national ($50) packages and corporate plans are also available. Prepay packages cost $20 for 120 minutes and $50 for 300 minutes.

Getting online with T-Mobile HotSpot was a bit vexing. After making the initial connection, though, subsequent sessions went off without problems.

To begin, I inserted a Cisco Systems Wi-Fi networking card into my Windows XP notebook for the first time, and the card was instantly recognized. (If you're using an older notebook with, say, Windows 98, you'll probably need to install your Wi-Fi card's driver first.) A Windows dialog box then materialized, asking me to choose between "tmobile" and "linksys" as my wireless network; I selected "tmobile."

Once I'd activated the the wireless network on my notebook, I launched my Web browser, as the yellow T-Mobile HotSpot instruction card at the Starbucks counter instructed me. My browser is set to a blank opening page by default, and that's exactly what I got--nothing--though I should have been automatically directed to the HotSpot sign-up Web page. I typed in www.t-mobile.com/hotspot but I got nowhere.

Having been a MobileStar user before, I remembered a tip that tech support gave me for getting connected the first time. In Internet Explorer, I set www.yahoo.com as my default opening page. (To do this, go to Tools, Internet Options, and on the General tab, type that URL into the home page address, click Apply and OK.) Then I closed the browser. When I reopened it, the HotSpot sign-up page appeared.

Caveat Emptor

The yellow HotSpot brochure offers a free 24-hour trial. But there's a catch: You must sign up for a service plan and enter your credit-card number to activate the trial, though you can cancel afterwards. If you used MobileStar in the past, as I did, you don't get the free trial.

Before you commit, read the service plan terms and conditions. With a pay-as-you go plan, the minimum session is 15 minutes: Go online for 5 minutes to check e-mail, for instance, and you'll be charged for 15 minutes. For prepay plans, the minimum session is 10 minutes. You can discontinue a monthly plan after 30 days, but if you don't you're automatically locked into a one-year agreement; breaking the contract could cost you up to $200. Data transfer rates beyond 500MB per month incur additional charges of 25 cents per megabyte. There's a $1 surcharge for every 24-hour period of use at an airport location. And unused minutes purchased on a prepay plan expire 120 days after your account is activated.

Another caveat: T-Mobile HotSpot requires you to shut down firewall software in order to use the service. Call me paranoid, but I won't be banking online while in Starbucks. Accessing the Internet through a secure Virtual Private Network is no problem, according to the company, though I couldn't test that claim.

Once I signed up and got connected, T-Mobile HotSpot worked beautifully. I checked e-mail, downloaded attachments, and surfed a number of sites (some with multimedia content) at speeds noticeably faster than my DSL connection at the office. My newfound 10-year-old buddy and I were both impressed. He excused himself after a few minutes, presumably to catch a ride on a passing skateboard, and left me alone to savor my mocha--and the Sopranos video clips.

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