The Firehouse

A freak chain of events led to the discovery that Starbucks and Swisscom Hospitality have parted ways in Spain, leaving the coffee shop experience operator free to offer alternatives (maybe even free WiFi!).

It all started with one of the hottest days this summer, which caused everyone on our office building to change their AC units’ fans from ‘High’ to ‘Warp 6′. This in turn melted the utility’s power cable into the building, and cool joy turned to hot dispair in minutes. With no internet connectivity and rapidly heating office, the move seemed clear – hit the cool Starbucks just below us, while repairs to fit a bigger cable took place.

Upon connecting to the SSID ’swisscom’, I was sadly greeted with a blank page, a single line of text reading “This service is currently unavailable”, and a “Close this window” button. There happens to be a fairly large concentration of Starbucks in the Barcelona city center, and so I hit another two – with identical results. A few inquiries have confirmed the suspicion.

Swisscom Hospitality remains the provider of WiFi services to many other businesses in Spain, such as the very important NH hotel chain.

[Edit] AustinTX mentions in his blog that I didn’t quote an information source – I got this information straight from Swisscom, and confirmed it with a Starbucks manager a couple of days later.