Would you share your Wi-Fi with your neighbour?

sew_what

Our neighbours have our guest network password for if/when theirs goes down and we have theirs (or did have - not used it in ages) it's the modern way of borrowing a cup of sugar surely?  Note we have a secure network for guests so they can't get at anything else!  They also have a key to our house for when we go away.  I guess it all comes down to trust!

BlueVeranda

We shared with a neighbour once during lockdown when their provider went down and they needed a connection to work from home. I wouldn't do it long term but as a one off it was fine and hopefully they would have done the same for us had we needed it. (We did change the password they'd had access to afterwards as a precaution, which is how I can be sure it wasn't long term!)

Mistral001

Gavin83 said:

We used our neighbours Wi-Fi for a few weeks after moving in and waiting for ours to be setup, which saved us a lot of hassle. Only seems fair for me to return the favour if put in the same situation.

Since they have the password, you will never really know if they are using it or not.  It might become just a little too handy to use it when they want to change suppliers.

FFHillbilly

no mainly due to security issues, and also it's likely not going to work very well, we struggle for enough coverage around this house, let alone either of the neighbours houses. and speed at peak times will be an issue, it seem ridiculous to try and save such a small amount of money but risking connectivity issues. 
Would I want to receive the neighbours WiFi for free? absolutely not, it would make me dependant on them. what if they go away on holiday and something happens in their house and the router needs reset? the more and more you think about it it's ridiculous

daivid

Mistral001 said:

Gavin83 said:

We used our neighbours Wi-Fi for a few weeks after moving in and waiting for ours to be setup, which saved us a lot of hassle. Only seems fair for me to return the favour if put in the same situation.

Since they have the password, you will never really know if they are using it or not.  It might become just a little too handy to use it when they want to change suppliers.

Log onto your router and you can see which devices are using it. 

We have shared when one or other has had connectivity issues. This with neighbours we knew well enough to look after the children of and visa versa, broadband is pretty insignificant really in comparison. I wouldn’t do it for money saving though, given our house's construction some effort would need to go into giving both houses decent wifi signal, borrowed wifi was ok for picking up emails but no use for heavier use.

Eldi_Dos

Think I would rather share my toothbrush with neighbours dog than give anyone outside of family the password to router.

Murmansk

I don't share my neighbour's wi-fi but, even better, I have a Cat5 cable snaking through the place from my flat to hers and it's connected to the back of her router. I have my own wi-fi device on the other end of the cable AND I have a VOIP phone line with a local number so not only am I not paying for my own broadband, I also manage to pay not very much for my "landline". We share the broadband costs actually.

Talking of wi-fi, I may be a bit pedantic but I always notice how people refer to wi-fi when they mean broadband - as though you pay someone to deliver wi-fi to your house when actually you're paying them to deliver broadband - the wi-fi is what gets produced by your router. 

Ectophile

No.  If you share your WiFi, and the neighbour starts using your internet connection for illegal purposes, then it will be your front door that gets kicked in at 6am by the police.

QrizB

Yes, definitely. I have shared WiFi both ways, when one of us has had a line fault (we have problems with trees eating the overhead lines).

Mistral001

daivid said:

Mistral001 said:

Gavin83 said:

We used our neighbours Wi-Fi for a few weeks after moving in and waiting for ours to be setup, which saved us a lot of hassle. Only seems fair for me to return the favour if put in the same situation.

Since they have the password, you will never really know if they are using it or not.  It might become just a little too handy to use it when they want to change suppliers.

Log onto your router and you can see which devices are using it. 

We have shared when one or other has had connectivity issues. This with neighbours we knew well enough to look after the children of and visa versa, broadband is pretty insignificant really in comparison. I wouldn’t do it for money saving though, given our house's construction some effort would need to go into giving both houses decent wifi signal, borrowed wifi was ok for picking up emails but no use for heavier use.

I did not know you could log onto your router  and see what devices are using it.   Do many people routinely do that though?