Caribou Coffee gains freedom from FreedomLink: The firm, which at this writing still lists its AT&T FreedomLink affiliation, will offer one hour free to customers. After the first hour, a purchase of $1.50 or more is needed for each additional hour. This is a very interesting model that I've seen at some independent coffeehouses, but not that I can recall in a chain.
This is also the third national chain going free or quasi-free: Tully's cut the fee cord a few weeks ago, and Cosi went free on July 1. Neither Cosi nor Tully's requires purchases.
Wandering WiFi will operate the service for Caribou, which will launch Wi-Fi at some undisclosed number of its over 400 stores in 16 states. The press release says "participating locations" will have Wi-Fi by next month.
The Wandering Wifi service I got from my local Caribou blocked Myspace - see
http://vielmetti.typepad.com/vacuum/2006/10/wandering_wifi_.html
for an account of it and the details.