Corporate Encouragement For Sharing Your WiFi

anagama writes "Conventional wisdom is that one should lockdown wifi, your ISP doesn't want you to share your connection, that person checking email outside the coffee shop ought to be arrested. The UK ISP BT is offering an alternative model. The company will encourage its three million broadband users to pick up a FON router and start sharing signals. 'For BT, the move makes its broadband offering more useful to customers, who can access the Internet from more places, and BT doesn't need to build out a new wireless network itself. BT's Gavin Patterson, a managing director, holds out hopes that the FON scheme can someday "cover every street in Britain." "We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity," he added in a statement. "If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny." '"

Not for free. Charging extra users.

[mjensen]

From the article, FON is charging the extra users. It's extra revenue for them. The extra users aren't getting on for free.

Some US providers try/tried too...

[olden]

Some providers in the US also try/tried that, starting as early as 2003, and usually hoping that non-customers would pay $$ to access their network through such user-provided "open" wi-fi APs. I don't think this worked overly well so far though...
http://www.sonic.net/hotspots/ [sonic.net]
http://www.speakeasy.net/netshare/learnmore/ [speakeasy.net]

Re:WTF?

[EriDay]

FON authenticates its users.

Re:Not for free. Charging extra users.

[larry bagina]

how do you read that?

Other "Foneros" can access the public channel for free, while non-Foneros can pay a few dollars a day to use the access points.

"If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny."

Re:Not for free. Charging extra users.

[Buelldozer]

Whaaaa? How did this get modded insightful?

Fon has three types of users: Linux, Bill, and Alien. If you sign up as a Linux and share your wifi you get free wifi at any other Fon access point.

If you are a Bill you make a bit of money when another Bill or Alien, logs onto your Fon access point. Conversely if you roam onto another Fon AP you are expected to pay at a reduced rate.

An Alien is anyone who is not part of the Fon network. They can still access any Fon AP but they have to pay to do it.

My point is that if you are a "La Fonera" and share your wifi free you get wifi free. Sharing is good.

BT's FAQ

[Jacco de Leeuw]

As posted on the FON blog [fon.com]:

Q:If I am a Fonero and have BT do I need to sign up?
A: Yes

Q:I am a Fonero but not a BT customer, can I access BT Fonspots?
A:Yes, all Foneros can use BT Fon Hotsposts and vice versa

Q:I am a Fonero but not a BT customer, can I use BT Openzone hotspots.
A: No, but if you had BT Total broadband then Yes.

So, FON users still do NOT have free access to BT's commercial hotspots ("BT Openzone") UNLESS they are also paying BT broadband customers ("BT Total"). Bummer. The only thing new here is that a major ISP does not mind (and in fact encourages) the use of FON routers.

Re:RIAA

[TheRaven64]

Not really. If you'd R'dTFA[1] you would know that you still need to log on to the network to use it, and have an account with them. They still log exactly who is doing what and where.

They also allocate 512KB more bandwidth to your link while other people are using it, and only allow the other people to use this, which is quite neat.

[1] In my defence, I did this before it was on /. and so wasn't aware I was breaking the rules.

Re:So lets see....

[TheRaven64]

but no matter how you look at it you're still splitting your pipe

No you're not. That's the entire point of this system. When other people are connected, BT (who own almost all of the ADSL infrastructure in the UK, including the last mile) will allocate another 512KB of bandwidth to your connection. This will then be split between the other people who are using your connection.

I just had a quick look at TFA, and apparently it wasn't the same article I read earlier today detailing this scheme, which made no mention of FON but did explain the extra bandwidth provision.

Re:Since there's a camera on every street corner..

[jmpeax]

Nor was he running - that, too, was a lie.

Re:Sure, I'll share my broadband...

[Bogtha]

...but will BT pay for it?

Yes. [fon.com] Summary: When somebody accesses the Internet through your connection, they pay for it, and you get half.

Re:Sounds great.. but...

[janrinok]

They only get to use the additional 512kb that is given to those who subscribe to the scheme. That 512kb can only be used by other users, not the subscriber himself. His connection remains at the maximum speed that he is entitled to under his existing contract. But it explains this in TFA....

Re:Just two questions...

[IndieKid]

From the FAQ [bt.com]:

What happens if someone uses my broadband connection to access an illegal site? Can I prove that it wasn't me accessing the sites?
Yes, their access to the internet will be through a separate channel, so it is easy to identify that the access was through the visitor channel.