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Coffee drinkers, rejoice: Starbucks stores across the U.S. will soon be getting free Wi-Fi from Google.
Google announced Wednesday that it is partnering with Starbucks to enhance the coffee-shop internet experience that many professionals now rely on. It's promising to make the wireless internet up to 10 times faster than Starbucks customers have previously enjoyed. Google Fiber cities, such as Kansas City, Kan., will get Wi-Fi that is up to 100 times faster, the company said. Google Fiber is an ongoing initiative to build a high-speed internet network using fiber-optic technology.
AT&T currently provides free Wi-Fi to Starbucks customers. But over the next 18 months, Google will replace AT&T's service in all 7,000 company-operated Starbucks locations across America.
Starbucks chief digital officer Adam Brotman said the coffee giant had not planned to drop AT&T, but was looking for ways to partner with Google and saw an opportunity to improve Wi-Fi speeds, according to a report published today by CNET.
AT&T, however, said it too had proposed 10 times faster network and Wi-Fi speeds to Starbucks, according to the report.
Related: Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz Says He's Not Afraid of Dunkin' Donuts
Brian Patrick Eha
Brian Patrick Eha is a freelance journalist and former assistant editor at Entrepreneur.com. He is writing a book about the global phenomenon of Bitcoin for Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Random House. It will be published in 2015.
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