A favour for a favour: share your Wi-Fi broadband with BT and FON

[HEXUS]

BT has finally tied up with FON and offers you the opportunity of using members' Wi-Fi for free!

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[DR]

Interesting move - esp as they were anti sharing ADSL and suddenly they change...

[Lee H]

Good point DR.

Also, who's going the one going to get the court summons if you are caught downloading copywrited material. The person "sharing" the broadband or the person "using" the broadband.

[TheAnimus]

Good point DR.

Also, who's going the one going to get the court summons if you are caught downloading copywrited material. The person "sharing" the broadband or the person "using" the broadband.

The idea of SafeHarbour is a good one, the same way if your lending Chef's knifes to people, you aren't responsible for anyone they kill, as long as you didn't realise they intended to use it for that purpose.

[DR]

I am keen to check the AUP for all ISP's since it was BT's rules originally with the wholesale package that you couldn't share it.

[UltraMagnus]

i actually have a la fonra or whatever its called around here somewhere i ordered some time back with the intetion of becoming a "bill"

hmm... perhaps i should dig it out.

although, you would think BT would do something other than just promote it, like making BT hotspots free to linuses.

[Timmy!!!]

Sounds like a good idea, but a lot of people use bittorrent, and p2p programs do have a habit of locking up a router or making internet very very slow. It will be interesting to see what BT do to prevent this from happening. Perhaps the routers capable of doing this 'sharing' will be solid enough to not slow down when p2p is being used.

[charleski]

The routers are the wireless BT Home Hubs that they've been bundling with their broadband packages for a while. They're configured in the same way as commercial wifi hotspot access points. When you connect to it you get a web page asking for your account details to log in. Outside users are only allowed to use a limited amount of the bandwidth, which is segregated from the domestic connection. Presumably the domestic machines are set up on a MAC list so they can connect directly.

[tonkei]

so does this mean that BT will be relaxing it's draconian fair 'use rules' on downloads?

[charleski]

I doubt it. All data transfers are still linked to a specific account.

[Chimaera_5]

so does this mean that BT will be relaxing it's draconian fair 'use rules' on downloads?

I don't think so, the connected user will only be allowed a certain ammount of d/l speed, 512 i think, and they'll be subject to a new fair use policy during roaming to make sure that they don't leech other peoples connections for a long time.

Not sure if this is going to work considering its just BT home hub customers, plus only a certain percentage of those will sign up to the plan so i doubt it'll get enough numbers to make it worthwhile. Now if they managed to get other providers involved then it could get interesting.

[Lee H]

I hope the equipment they plan to use is more secure than the BT home hub.

If your wondering what I'm blabbering on about then check the link Here