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T-Mobile USA is suing Starbucks, accusing the coffee behemoth of a breach of contract by allowing AT&T to provide customers with free Wi-Fi access in its cafes.

In a complaint filed Thursday in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, T-Mobile says Starbucks "secretly" developed a plan with AT&T to provide Wi-Fi at its cafes, despite an exclusive partnership with T-Mobile. T-Mobile, which is seeking unspecified damages, alleges the companies broke an agreement over how Starbucks should transition the service from T-Mobile to AT&T, according to Reuters.

T-Mobile said that, under the agreement, it had the exclusive right to "sell, market, and promote" its services in Starbucks up until the stores were completely transitioned to AT&T's system, according to the lawsuit. T-Mobile says it is currently bearing the brunt of the cost of the service because it is providing the technology and equipment in all but two of Starbucks' U.S. markets--the San Antonio, Texas, and Bakersfield, Calif., markets.

In February, Starbucks ended its seven-year partnership with T-Mobile in favor of an agreement with AT&T. Under the old partnership with T-Mobile, customers would sign up for Wi-Fi for hourly and daily rates.

Under the new partnership, Starbucks in June began offering two hours of free Wi-Fi Internet service via AT&T to customers who purchase a Starbucks Reward Card with a minimum $5 credit on it. To keep the card active, customers must use their Starbucks Card at least once a month. New members of the service also get a voucher for a free drink.

AT&T's free Wi-Fi access for Starbucks coffee shops is finally here.

Starbucks on 29th Street and Park Aveneue in New York City.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

Starting Tuesday, Starbucks coffee shops across the country are offering two hours of free Wi-Fi Internet service through AT&T. In order to get the free service, customers must buy a Starbucks Reward Card with a minimum of $5 credit on it. Customers also must sign up for the free Wi-Fi online at Starbucks.com. To keep the card active, customers must also use their Starbucks Card at least once a month.

The free service is only for two hours and must be used in a single session. New members will also get a voucher for a free drink.

The free AT&T Wi-Fi offer comes as Starbucks phases out a seven-year relationship with T-Mobile, which had provided its customers Wi-Fi under hourly and daily rates. While existing T-Mobile account holders will still be able to sign on and use the T-Mobile service, AT&T has officially taken over all of Starbucks' hot spots.

Free Wi-Fi in Starbucks is part of AT&T's broader effort to give customers more choices using Wi-Fi. The company is also enabling its broadband and wireless data users to get free Wi-Fi at any of AT&T's 17,000 hot spots around the country. Under this program, subscribers aren't limited to the amount of time they can access a hot spot. These AT&T broadband and wireless data subscribers can also use their existing AT&T account information in the Starbucks hot spots. But unlike non-AT&T customers, they don't need to purchase a Starbucks Rewards Card and there is no time limit.

"Our philosophy is that we want broadband to be on demand," said Mike Woodward, vice president of business mobility for AT&T. "People don't think that they want to connect to the network using DSL or 3G cellular or Wi-Fi. And now we've lined up our assets to deliver all these various flavors of broadband."

The free service is part of Starbucks Reward card program, which started in April. Under this program, members can get free syrup and milk options with drinks as well as free refills of hot and iced brewed coffees. They can also get a free drink when they buy a pound of coffee beans. And now they'll be getting two hours of free Wi-Fi Internet connectivity courtesy of AT&T.

Adding free Wi-Fi to the mix is supposed to help lure customers, who may be forgoing their tall lattes in an effort to save money. While the idea is certainly a nice one, it seems like Starbucks and AT&T haven't done a great job promoting it.

I went to the Starbucks right around the corner from the CNET office on 29th Street and Park Avenue in Manhattan on Tuesday expecting to see a packed house of free Internet users. But instead, the patrons I spoke to sipping coffee and tapping away on their laptops weren't even aware that they could get free Wi-Fi.

Laptop users at Starbucks in New York City.

(Credit: Marguerite Reardon/CNET Networks)

Even the Starbucks employees didn't know or understand the ins and outs of the new program. When I asked how I could get online, the Starbucks employee who was helping me said she thought I could just sign up for the free service on the Starbucks Web site from a connection at my home or office. She wasn't aware that I needed a Starbucks Reward Card. And she was unaware of the two-hour time limit on the free service. Still, as an employee who was given access to the service with no strings attached, she said she is excited to have free Internet access. Previously, Starbucks employees were only offered discounted T-Mobile access.

"The discounted service just wasn't worth it to me," she said. "And it certainly is about time that we offered free Wi-Fi. Every other cafe and coffee shop around here seems to offer complimentary Internet."

Crowdsourcing has entered the mainstream big-time. It has become daunting to find a brand these days that does NOT have some crowdsourcing program in place.

My Starbucks Idea is just the latest example: Starbucks asks its consumers for advice, and besides certainly receiving a lot of good ideas, the troubled coffee chain makes consumers feel part of the brand remake.

It's the same template as usual: engage your community, harness its creativity, and let it create the content for you.

It works, sure, but it's getting stale. For some reason, marketing trends take two to three years before they are fully embraced, but if they are, then they become annoyingly ubiquitous (remember the "Tipping Point"?).

The reason is simple: Marketing executives are notoriously risk-averse (Seth Godin once reckoned that only if you're willing to put your job on the line will you do something truly innovative in marketing), and a model like crowdsourcing provides the right balance between safety net ("many others are doing it") and cutting edge ("crowdsourcing?" the CEO shrugged).

Crowdsourcing was a disruptive innovation two years ago, but now it's time to innovate crowdsourcing. It is a viable trend that has implications far beyond the marketing profession, but someone needs to take it to the next level.

So in the spirit of crowdsourcing, let me ask you: in the next stage, what could be a more innovative application of crowdsourcing?

You know social networking has jumped the shark when Starbucks gets into the act.

Starbucks has launched My Starbucks Idea, an electronic suggestion box where people can offer up their best ideas for making the already ubiquitous coffee retailer even more successful.

You could say the company is as aggressive with its Internet campaigns as it is with its prices. There is Wi-Fi in the stores, they let you log onto iTunes to see what song is playing in the store and download it, let you use text messaging to find the nearest store, and they gave away free digital songs for a month last year.

You can offer up ideas, vote on other peoples' ideas, and get feedback from Starbucks employees. The company says it will consider implementing the most popular ideas.

Suggestions range from offering weekly coffee specials and holding coffee classes to selling books and having "more coffee smells."

I've got one: charge less for soy milk!

At My Starbucks Idea site, you can make suggestions and vote on other people's ideas, which may or may not be used by the coffee retailer.

(Credit: Starbucks)

The common wisdom is that gas stations make almost no profit off the gas itself (the gas companies make a ton of profit, of course) and must have side businesses like garages and, above all, snack shops to turn a profit.

What if you were to turn that equation on its head and add a "filling station" to, say, a Starbucks? That's the intriguing possibility raised by an article on SFGate about Hyatt Hotels and Tesla Motors, the Google-founders-financed electric car start-up. (It's also been written up on CNET News.com.)

"Hyatt will install Tesla recharging stations at three hotels, stretching in an arc from San Francisco to Lake Tahoe.... By placing rechargers at Hyatts at Fisherman's Wharf, Sacramento and Incline Village on Tahoe's North Shore, a Tesla owner could drive from San Francisco to the lake without fear of running out of juice. Tesla has already driven one of the roadsters from Tahoe back to the company's San Carlos headquarters without recharging, but that was downhill, said Diarmuid O'Connell, Tesla's director of corporate marketing."

The two companies talked up the brand alignment between them, and how a Tesla customer is a Hyatt customer. Whether that's true or not, it's rather more upscale than an oil company aligning itself with, say, a fast food company to supply burgers at its stations.

Hotels are good places for charging because customers will leave their cars overnight. Starbucks could enter the picture when you can charge more quickly.

A separate news item in Technology Review about secretive battery manufacturer EEstore claims that they have a battery technology that will give a range of 200 miles--and charge in less than 10 minutes. If it's true (and there are plenty of skeptics), that would make a Starbucks a perfect place to add a charger. Pull up and park, plug your car in, stand in line for a latte, come on out and you're off with another 200 miles. It would transform the aesthetic and tone of "filling up" from one that has become grimy and unpleasant to one that is clean and faintly European.

The Times Online reports that U.K. music retailer HMV is opening the first of a new type of store in Dudley, west of Birmingham. The highlight: in-store kiosks with USB ports that will allow users to download free music and video files to a memory stick, for later transfer to their computer or other device. There are lots of other ambient-futurist touches, like big plasma displays, a mini Apple store, iMacs to play with, and a juice bar. As well as old-fashioned CDs and DVDs for sale.

Combine this idea with the Apple-Starbucks partnership announced on Wednesday, and I think you can get a good idea where music retailing is going. Instead of big open spaces with racks of physical music, clever retailers will create in-store experiences pervaded by, but not dominated by, music. Imagine an Internet cafe with a bar menu, a great sound system, and occasional live music performances. A Wi-Fi network is a must, with a "now playing" feature that lets you buy the currently playing song from an affiliated online music store--you could access the store from your own device or from one of the connected computers in the place. And of course, no DRM or proprietary formats, so the technology stays in the background where it belongs.

This sounds more appealing to me than a lot of other alternatives, like online music services where you have to listen to an ad before each song. I'd rather nurse a beer or two for the privilege of grabbing my music for free.