All in all, it's been a pretty good weekend in the UK. YouTube movie rental service is finally here and now Starbucks has extended its free Wi-Fi service. The world's most famous coffeehouse chain tweeted, "All our customers can access Free Wi-Fi at hundreds of Starbucks locations throughout the UK. Just click ‘Connect’ and enjoy!” However, for the sake of clarity, please let us point out that the free Wi Fi service does not extend to Starbucks branches in the airports. Starbucks would be providing this free Wi Fi service through BT Openzone.
Starbucks had been providing free Wi Fi service in the US from quite some time. However, until now, the service in the UK was a paid one and required you to sign up for a Store card, which provided you with a login id for using the network. Starbucks announced that the first phase of roll out would see about 650 stores getting free Wi Fi hotspots. It would be extending the coverage over time.
The coffee house will now feature unsecured network, which means that you just need to click the network and would obtain the entry. However, at the very same time, it may expose itself to phishing and other sort of attacks. So, although using this network, follows the common rules and precautions you apply whilst using public networks, the service is almost basic in the UK, in comparison to the US, where Starbucks also provides free access to paid content such as Patch, US Today and The New York Times. It is expected that even in the UK, Starbucks will enter into collaborations for providing similar access to the paid content.