Starbucks and AT&T today announced a new agreement under which they'll offer a mix of free and paid Wi-Fi access at Starbucks stores. If you've got a Starbucks Card, you can get up to two hours of Wi-Fi access for free. After that, it's $3.99 for an additional two hours - unless you're an AT&T broadband customer, in which case it's free all the time.

It's bad news, of course, for T-Mobile, which previously had an exclusive deal with Starbucks. "The swap takes 7,000 locations from T-Mobile's hotspot network, leaving it with just 2,000," notes Wired's Charlie Sorrel - though that's not entirely true: through a roaming agreement with AT&T, T-Mobile customers will still be able to get online at Starbucks. The real loss is to T-Mobile the company, which no longer has exclusive access at Starbucks.

"It's an understandable move on Starbucks' part; the coffee chain has a number of deals in place with Apple and its iTunes Store," notes CNET News' Caroline McCarthy. "Apple uses AT&T as the mobile service provider for the iPhone. Rumors of a Starbucks mobile ordering interface for the iPhone have been circulating for months."

The switch to AT&T isn't effective immediately, though - according to the companies, implementation will begin this spring and won't be completed until the end of the year.

More here from Mac Rumors ... more here from Gearlog ... more here from SlashGear ... more here from Wi-Fi Net News ... more here from Electronista ... more here from AppleInsider ... more here from the AP ... more here from ZDNet ... more here from Computerworld ... and the press release is here.