BT hooks up with FON for widespread WiFi

[#1]

Many sources are reporting on BT's plans to create a UK-wide WiFi 'hotspot' with a deal with FON..

It took quite a few months to make the call, but it seems the chatter between FON and BT Group has finally resulted in a deal. Announced today, Britain's top fixed-line carrier will be teaming up with FON to allow "more than three million UK broadband customers to use hundreds of thousands of hotspots for free." BT customers who agree to share a pinch of their broadband connection(s) will be eligible to surf away gratis on any of the "190,000" FON hotspots worldwide, and BT Group apparently hopes that this deal will eventually lead to "every street in Britain" being covered by WiFi. Source: Engadget

[#2]

Crowdsourced wifi access! This is very interesting and as more and more portable gadgets feature wifi, this will be a great selling point.

[#3]

Does plus net have any plans to make any deals with FON? We're in a strange position in that we can actually see the cost of donating our bandwidth, as it's metered, compared to other providers.

[#4]

With the way this service uses the BT Home Hub, Fon originated usage could easily be separated out from the usage allowance (And would be - The question is, when you log into Fon from elsewhere, would that usage could be counted in some way). I'm confident we will end up offering Fon to customers, but not in the short term I'm afraid. We need to get the Hub out first and that is looking like it won't be this year currently (Getting a hub specified for PlusNet and which meets all our requirements is proving a challenge!). Let me know if you need more info. Ian

[#5]

As FON is essentially about sharing an existing broadband connection via a wireless router would PlusNet stop me from buying a FON router (a "La Fonera" directly from shop.fon.com) and connecting it to my broadband router? i.e. T's & C's ?? I'm not interested in the BT Home Hub (especially thanks to the recent remote security hole in their routers!) ... if I was I'd move to BT Openworld 8-) I've been with Force9 for many years and had no problems with the network (run my own SMTP server so never suffered mail outages 8-), so I'd like to continue with PlusNet but as a big user of wifi access points I think the FON community wifi approach is the way to go and much better / cheaper / faster than 2.5 or 3G.

[#6]

Hi, The short answer: Yes, if you wish to use Fon we will not do anything to prevent you. However I think it's important you consider the below before you decide to do so with any ISP and not using the home hub. Long answer: The two relevant parts of our T&Cs are: "14.5 When we provide you with the Service and any associated Software, it is for your use only. Therefore, you must not re-sell, transfer, assign or sub-license the whole or any part of the Service or the associated Software to anyone else." Which, although it could be interpreted as such, I don't think precludes the use of Fon provided no charge is being made and you remain the primary user of the connection. The reality anyway is that we could never detect your use of Fon, so from that perspective it would be pointless to suggest you coulden't do this. However, section 14.1 gives more food for thought: "14.1 You will not use the Service, and will take all reasonable precautions to ensure that no one (including you) uses the Service..." and it goes on to list a lot of things (like illegally) that Fon could make possible without you're knowledge. Again, we don't have a way to proactively prevent that, however the issue comes if someone ever did use your connection for a nefarious purpose. If the law enforcement agencies (or even a party like a hollywood studio) collected evidence to show your connection had been used to commit a crime, it would be down to you to PROVE that it was not you. That would place you in a VERY difficult position indeed and it's one where we would be powerless to assist. With the BT roll-out of FON, they've built it so they know what is your traffic, and what is somebody else's traffic, and they provide full accountability. If you're using the BT setup, you won't get your door kicked in if somebody else is throwing kiddy porn around - it's not "open WiFi", it's "share with other users of the same service" with accountability bolted in. For those who think "innocent until proven guilty" will work with an open router, I'm afraid that isn't how the case will be framed by the CPS: 1. This IP address was used to commit offence 'x' 2. This IP address was assigned to your connection 3. You are legally responsible for that connection 4. You are therefore legally responsible for offence 'x' As far as I understand it, they have a 100% conviction rate in these cases. Remember: ignorance is no defence. If you open up your WiFi you're responsible for what happens to it as far as the law is concerned. I hope that answers you're question - Fon is a great idea, but there is a major problem with it that wasn't addressed until the BT tie in came along. Ian