As a T-Mobile customer I wasn't impressed to read this morning that Starbucks was going to swap over to AT&T as their WiFi Hotspot provider.

One of the reasons for me choosing T-Mo over, say, Verizon or AT&T was the relative ubiquity of their hotspots thanks to the Starbucks deal, but now apart from one borders store and a hotspot in one terminal at SeaTac I can't think where I last encountered a T-Mo Hotspot in the US (and they're pretty few and far between in the UK as well).

I like their GPRS/Edge data service. It works well enough and has great coverage (I've not been without a signal anywhere I've traveled in the US) but it looks like their plans are currently all you can eat internet (over the air data and WiFi) or very limited WAP... and I resent paying for a service that pretty soon I might not be able to use.

Why might? Because the small print in the Starbucks release indicates that T-Mobile customers will continue to be able to use the hotspots after the transition.

The deal actually looks pretty good for Starbucks customers

I did drop T-Mobiles customer support a mail to see if they've anything to say by way of clarification.... hopefully it'll be good news. Meantime I'll be pricing up AT&T data services just in case...