BT Steal Your Internet !!!

sly666

Watchout if your a new BT internet customer.
Their T&C's changed in December so they now enable BT FON as default which automaticaly enables your BT Homehub router as a wirless hotspot allowing paying users to connect to your router and use your bandwidth (which you pay BT for).

This is nothing short of theft. There may be thousands of BT customers unaware this is even happening.

This could open up a whole can of worms when the police kick your door down at 3am as someone on your IP address has been looking at illicit kiddy images.

Funny that its illigal for anyone to piggyback someone elses wifi connection but BT change their T&C's to make it Ok for them to do it to their own customer then re-sell it!

And the whole thing is also powered by MY electricity which i also pay for!

It took a 45 min phone call to custard services to get BT FON removed as (strangly) the opt-out feature on their website ( bt.com/btfon) was not working,

Check your wireless networks now to see if two new networks have popped up called "BTFON" and "BTOpenzone" If so then get on the phone to BT FON department on 0800 022 3322 and give then a piece of your mind.

I would not be so bad if they let their sharing customers use other FON hotspots, but you get a rather poor 250 mins while BT FON has a unlimited access to your bandwidth.

Get a grip BT.
The idea is a good one, but it should be voluntary to opt-in and sharers should get unlimited sharing rights on other hotspots.

HopeAndDriftWood

The usage by other people connecting to BT FON does not come out of your usage, and they will not be using your IP address.

I'm not even with BT, I left in January last year, but I got a letter saying that the usage does not come out of your allowance, and you do not pay for it.

As for your IP address, it is unique to you, whether you have a fixed one which is always your computer or an automatically generated one, it can only be assigned to one computer at a time and so there is no chance of any mishaps. If the police come to your door, it was your IP address.

Most packages do allow unlimited access to BT FON hotspots that belong to other people, too, and they did allow us to opt out before it started. If you signed up after this 'rolling out' period, it will have been in their T & Cs when you joined.

As for your electric, I guess thats why you'll opt out. It won't be using more then just you being online, however.

banger9365

i got a few where i live and a virgin unsecured one ,silly person tut tut

it's not free £3 for 1 hour
£5 for a day
£15 for 5 days
and £39 for 30 days
just loged on one round by us
nice to now if my bb go's down for a few hours or a day

dehaani

SaucySecrets wrote: »

If you signed up after this 'rolling out' period, it will have been in their T & Cs when you joined.

My goodness! I didn't know anything about that, but it gives me yet another reason to dislike BT.

How does it affect the subscribers' WAN and Wifi throughput? I'm sure at least the former will be throttled but somehow it doesn't sit right with me. I see a big difference between service contention downstream and someone sitting outside your house, actually leeching on your individual service!

mrJ_5

SaucySecrets wrote: »

As for your IP address, it is unique to you, whether you have a fixed one which is always your computer or an automatically generated one, it can only be assigned to one computer at a time and so there is no chance of any mishaps. If the police come to your door, it was your IP address.

The IP address is unique to the router - since that is what connects to the internet - your computer will get a local IP from the router. If you go on the internet from any computer online, they all use it via the same router - so to websites, all the computers in the home will come up as the same IP.

You can check the IP of your router if you like and compare it to the IP you obtain in Windows (OSX, etc) - they are different. If you don't have a network nor connect via a router - ie. you use a USB modem to connect, then and only then will you see the same IP address.

omen666

sly666 wrote: »

Watchout if your a new BT internet customer.
Their T&C's changed in December so they now enable BT FON as default which automaticaly enables your BT Homehub router as a wirless hotspot allowing paying users to connect to your router and use your bandwidth (which you pay BT for).

This is nothing short of theft. There may be thousands of BT customers unaware this is even happening.

This could open up a whole can of worms when the police kick your door down at 3am as someone on your IP address has been looking at illicit kiddy images.

Funny that its illigal for anyone to piggyback someone elses wifi connection but BT change their T&C's to make it Ok for them to do it to their own customer then re-sell it!

And the whole thing is also powered by MY electricity which i also pay for!

It took a 45 min phone call to custard services to get BT FON removed as (strangly) the opt-out feature on their website ( bt.com/btfon) was not working,

Check your wireless networks now to see if two new networks have popped up called "BTFON" and "BTOpenzone" If so then get on the phone to BT FON department on 0800 022 3322 and give then a piece of your mind.

I would not be so bad if they let their sharing customers use other FON hotspots, but you get a rather poor 250 mins while BT FON has a unlimited access to your bandwidth.

Get a grip BT.
The idea is a good one, but it should be voluntary to opt-in and sharers should get unlimited sharing rights on other hotspots.

This is not really true now is it?

mrtom21

That is not correct... Yes they automatically sign you up to BT FON... But if someone connects through your internet they are actually using their own BT FON account and their own IP address. Your usage is not affected in any way and they have no access to anything on your PC/Mac. You can also opt out if you want :P.

ComplexP

mrtom21 wrote: »

Your usage is not affected in any way

But it must have an impact on your download speeds if someone else is logging on via your router and therefore phone line? These old copper/aluminium cables can only handle so much data so how does BT stop my 4MBit line dropping to 0.5MBits if 8 people are trying to access BT FON near my home?

mrtom21

The person suplying the connection gets priority. What are the chances that 8 people near your house connect to your signal? You would be lucky if it got used once or twice the majority of your neighbours will have their own connection. It also means you can use your connection if you pick up signal if your internet was to go down.

ComplexP

Perhaps in the majority of neighborhoods yes but theoretically it could happen, especially if you happen to live on a main high street or near a cafe for example.

I assume that 'priority' would mean 100% bandwidth to the primary bill payer whenever it is called upon because anything less would cause problems. Unfortunately I don't trust that any system from BT would work flawlessly and the additional traffic management could hammer ping times.

I'd certainly approach it with a high degree of caution and would probably opt out on principle unless BT made it a free service. Why should BT make extra money out of my equipment?

I might be tempted to opt in if BT were to pay me based on the usage my router recieved on the FON network... That would be altogether different.

It's a moot point anyway since I have no intention of signing up to BT for broadband. I'm not that desperate.

tanith

I found it useful as I can log in and use the Fon with a laptop when away from home... I have have never had any problems with speed of my system at home....