For several years I've been astonished by Starbucks' stubborn refusal to offer free wi-fi service to its customers. I live in a small community in upstate New York and can find a dozen establishments within a 10-mile radius where I can sit down, order a drink and look at porn get some work done without having to pay some telecom through the nose for a temporary wireless Internet connection.

So I was happy to see this story over the weekend:

T-Mobile USA has filed a suit against Starbucks, saying that the coffee company breached its contract by offering free wireless Internet access in a partnership promotion with AT&T. Starbucks recently began switching over its Wi-Fi service from its 7-year partnership with T-Mobile to AT&T; along with the switch in service, AT&T and Starbucks began offering free wireless access as part of its customer loyalty program.

On the downside, Starbucks isn't exactly rolling out the free service at warp speed:

Although Starbucks and AT&T hope to switch all 7,000 coffee shops to AT&T's network by the end of this year, all but two locations are still on T-Mobile's network.

Suggested slogan: Two down, 6,998 to go!