What on Earth is up with Starbucks recently? They appear to actually be making smart decisions to help their company.

Not long after they promise to slow their ridiculously fast expansion, and then promise to bring cheaper options to customers, today they’ve announced that they are teaming up with AT&T to launch free Wi-Fi in their stores.

Okay, it’s not exactly free, you do have to purchase an item at which point you’ll get a card good for 2-hours of free Wi-Fi usage, but still, this is infinity times better than their previous $3,000-a-day option (only slight exaggeration was used in this sentence). After your two hours are up you can buy 2 more hours for $3.99 – again much better than their current $6-an-hour fee. They’ll also still offer monthly passes for $19.99 which will include any of AT&T’s 70,000 worldwide hotspots.

There is also a nice bit for iPhone users (and other AT&T wireless customers): Starbucks “will soon extend the Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless phone customers” – so perhaps a purchase won’t even be necessary.

This new free Wi-Fi should begin rolling out this Spring, which means in a few months I’ll be spending a lot more time in Starbucks. Like Frederic, my choice of coffee shop has been almost completely dependent on if they have free Wi-Fi; I’m shocked that Starbucks got away with not having it for this long.