Do customers provide (some) BT hot-spots?

[Loose rivets]

This is what happened.

I use Skype to talk to landlines (and that includes US mobiles) for 5 quid or so a month. Very handy. For a couple of days I was getting dropped calls after a few moments. Various clues made me think it was my connection to the world rather than the laptop or the home hub.

I ran inSSIDer and it showed my strong signal BTHub3-FMT4 and BTWiFi with FON occupying ch 11. They vie with each other for first place with no other contenders. Ah, thinks I, a BT hot spot is knocking out my signal. A man on BT support agreed and suggested changing channels. Today, I got around to it, but to my surprise the other signal followed me down to (a now fixed) ch4. I called India again. Not so, says he. But that would be one hell of a coincidence, says I. He had three extended talks with his supervisor. I could in no way influence the hot-spot's transmission channel. Okay, but it hadn't budged off 11 for weeks. The moment I changed, it changed.

Two things. Is it what its name implies? Certainly if I log onto it, I get offered Wi-Fi at so much per hour/day etc.

It happened that for a moment, this other (unsecured) signal hopped to 6 and was much stronger. It soon settled back on my spot at my signal's strength. That kind of belies me changing it, but the odds . . .

I'm not sure I believe him - or his supervisor, but I questioned him (vigorously) about BT using customer's houses to provide hot-spots for others. Do they? If so, what affect does it have on one's bandwidth? At first, he assured me it wouldn't cost us anything, and then said it doesn't happen. Mmmm . . .

[ShyTorque]

As I understand things, this is exactly how it's supposed to work with BT. You can share the wifi network of other subscribers, they can share yours in return.
You sign up to say you are happy with this arrangement. I did.

I've never noticed anyone using my wifi, but I live at the end of a private cul de sac so anyone in range of mine would have their own connection anyway because there is no passing traffic

If you didn't sign up to accept the arrangement, summat's not right.

[WeeJeem]

Yup, the FON ssid is BT offering a chargeable service through your home hub, they opted you in without actually asking you :=

Go here (https://www.bt.com/wifi/secure/status.do?s_cid=con_FURL_btfon/status) to check the status / turn the fr@cker off.

hth

[Loose rivets]

Ah, very interesting. I'm only a guest in this lady's house, so must be a bit careful what I do. However, I've just looked into the router's firmware again and I notice, BT FON: Active. Since it has no control button, One will read your link re turning the fr@cker off. :D




Yes, that looks the business, but I'll have to wait for my host to provide the password etc., and indeed to see that she didn't sign up for it. Is there a financial incentive to provide a hot-spot?





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[Keef]

FON etc is part of BT's Ts & Cs, I think, and you're stuck with it if you use BT.

It's quite handy if you're a BT customer, because you have free WiFi hotspots all over the place.

As for the Skype dropping out - that's likely to be a different problem.

[Booglebox]

Bastards. Orange / France Telecom do the same thing in France, but you can disable it.

[Background Noise]

I found it useful - you have to opt in, which allows your router to provide a small part of its service for others but the benefit is that you get free BT FON wifi elsewhere (from everyone else's FON) using your normal BT log on. You shouldn't have to pay anything if you are a BT Internet subscriber.

To turn it off on the home hub you have to log in to the homehub as an administrator and disable FON.

[mixture]

Loose rivets

Yes they do and its yet another very good reason never to be a BT broadband customer !

[Background Noise]

Or maybe a good reason to be one - depends on your requirements. It did me fine when I was weekly commuting but there are far cheaper deals if you don't need the FON service.

[Loose rivets]

One lives and learns and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that a support bod didn't know what that signal was for. As for the signal, I'm puzzled it can sit right over the router's signal, slipping in and out of first signal strength place - as shown on inSSIDer's graphs - and not interfere with my link to the router. The days of heterodyne wine seem to be long past.

The screen mentioned above certainly seems to give the option of opting out, but I wonder what would come out of the woodwork if one did. I suppose the first thing would be to lose the right to latch on to other hot-spots.

Given that it's not mine, and the lady in question is a super-duper exec type, I'd better bow out gracefully.








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[EGTE]

All BT Broadband customers are automatically opted-in to BT Wi-fi and its worldwide partner FON. It means that those customers have unlimited and free wi-fi access at any BT Wi-fi hotspot in the UK and FON site worldwide. In return the broadband user shares a very small amount of their unused bandwidth with other BT Wi-fi users.

Non-BT broadband customers can purchase wi-fi access.

The BT Homehub will allocate a maximum of 5 IP addresses to BT Wi-fi users. Speeds available to BT Wi-fi users is limited to the range of 512k to 5Mb/s depending on the line speed of the broadband connection. The broadband user has bandwidth priority over wi-fi connections. Wi-fi users will be disconnected if the broadband customer requires their full bandwidth.

A BT Broadband customer can opt out of FON anytime they want by visiting the BT | FON (http://www.btfon.com) website. Once opted out they can no longer use the free wi-fi service at hotspots. It can take up to 30 days for BT to send a software update to the HomeHub so don't expect the BT Wi-fi signals from your HomeHub to disappear immediately.

That have a website Get wireless Internet | Find wi-fi hotspots | BT Wi-fi (http://www.btwifi.com) and a UK call centre for more info.

[vulcanised]

Round here you would be better off if TalkTalk ran such a scheme.

Out of a dozen signals I pick up, eleven of them are TT.

[NRU74]

Vulcanised
[quote] Round here you would be better off if TalkTalk ran such a scheme.

Out of a dozen signals I pick up, eleven of them are TT. [quote]

http://www.pprune.org/images/statusicon/user_online.gif Just buy a Fon Router [£34] and plug it in to your Talk Talk Router
You then have the same access to BT Fon [or whatever it's called at the moment]in the UK plus SFR Fon In France, DeutscheTelecon Fon Germany etc etc
[What's TT ?]

[Loose rivets]

Thanks EGTE, I'll plagiarize your comprehensive post and try to impress my impromptu landlady. :8