Starbucks is upgrading its Wi-Fi in more than 7,000 stores to provide faster web-browsing speeds for customers, Mashable reported.
The coffee company, which also serves as an Internet café, will be switching to Google from AT&T in thousands of stores in the United States over the next year and a half. The speeds are expected to be up to ten times faster.
New stores, from this week on, will automatically have the new Wi-Fi provider, while existing stores will have to wait for the upgrade. Stores with the most Wi-Fi average daily usage will get top priority for the switch.
"This is obviously an important milestone in our relationship with Google," Starbucks Chief Digital Officer Adam Brotman told CNET. "We do hope this is one step amongst many that we can continue to build upon what's already a great partnership with Google."
Brotman said the company is working with Google and Level 3 Communications to upgrade each location with DSL, cable modems and multiple T1 lines. Starbucks stores already have T1 lines, which are capable of speeds up to 1.5 megabits per second.
"We really focus on how this enhances the customer experience and we believe if we continue to focus on that, good things will come to our business downstream," Brotman told Mashable of how offering free Wi-Fi to its customers helps Starbucks' bottom line. "We do believe that all the things we do to enhance the in-store experience enhance sales."
Brotman declined to comment on the financial details of the switch and also on changes to the page Wi-Fi users are directed to upon connecting to the network. He only said that default page would be upgraded to improve the customer experience.
"We're moving to much more of a streaming world across all media types," Brotman told CNET. "This increased bandwidth will match what consumers are doing on the Web today, whether downloading or streaming or both."
