Starbucks, AT&T Reach Settlement with T-Mobile

As I said when I first wrote about this lawsuit, it was obviously something that T-Mobile would be willing to settle out of court for. And on Wednesday, AT&T and Starbucks reached a settlement with T-Mobile, which had claimed that the other companies had secretly colluded with each other to offer free Wi-Fi Internet access despite the exclusive contract Starbucks had with T-Mobile.

To make things more complex, T-Mobile's service is being phased out, but the lawsuit claimed T-Mobile had the exclusive right to "sell, market and promote its services" in Starbucks stores until those stores were fully converted to the AT&T system.

In an emailed statement, Starbucks spokeswoman Stacey Krum said:

"T-Mobile, AT&T and Starbucks have entered into a memorandum of understanding to resolve their disputes and are committed to providing a high quality Wi-Fi experience for customers."

T-Mobile's point, and it was a good one, was that AT&T and Starbucks were profiting from the infrastructure in place, which was T-Mobile's. To date, according to the lawsuit, only two markets -- the San Antonio, Texas, and Bakersfield, California, markets -- have been transitioned from T-Mobile to AT&T.

Source: By Tech Ex http://technologyexpert.blogspot.com/