I have a really simple solution. Take the BT router and deposit it in the bin (or the back of a cupboard) then plug a proper router in.
Job done!
Telecoms giant BT has admitted charging a number of customers for the traffic racked up by its FON services, which uses a portion of each customer's Wi-Fi connection to provide hotspots accessible to the public. A few weeks ago The Register reported that bungling cops in the grim north of England didn't understand the idea …
Replaced my buggy BT homehub (which had all manner of problems with all manner of simple things) on my BT Infinity with a Asus RT-N66U
The only thing that hates the N66 is the BT Vision box, so nothing of any consequence
Everything else works dandy
Took some research to find a router that would swap in so nicely
Interesting to see your recommendation for the Asus RT-N66U. In view of the Reg review of 802.11ac routers, does anyone know if the RT-AC68U will replace a BT Homehub?
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Call from friend: "my internet seems to have disappeared. BT say the server must be down".
This is the friend who had a desktop PC wired to an ancient BT router. But she then bought a laptop with wireless. When I asked if she had now got a wireless router from BT she replied that she didn't need one as she had internet from BT via wireless anyway.
Next time I visited to fix some other bit of tech I saw that indeed she had BT wireless -- but she was clearly tapping into a neighbour's BT FON facility. She brushed away my concern that she should actually use the broadband she was paying for by getting a wireless router connected to her own ADSL feed.
So when the call came the other day I sighed and explained that probably the neighbour whose service she'd been using unwittingly had gone on holiday and turned off the router.
"But I'm paying for BT broadband, I don't understand."
I think she still doesn't really believe me but has agreed to ring BT and ask for a wireless router.
I don't know if I have just been lucky but I have had 2 home hubs now, a v3 and a v5 on Infinity, and not had any of the problems I constantly see posted about them. My FON is on and we have 2 heavy internet users over 6 or 7 devices including the consoles. I can max out the connection downloading from Steam (though individual connections seem to go no higher than 1.5mb/s) without my flatmate even noticing and he gets very loud if his connection wobbles even slightly.
That said I can understand the BT hate. Every service I have had from them, right back to the dial-up, ISDN or nothing days, has been absolutely terrible until Infinity.
@mrmagoo
I have to say the only ever Issue i had with a BT router was trying to play test Drive Unlimited, bt routers were throttling the P2P traffic.
Otherwise we have 5 computers 2 laptops 1 tablet and 4 phones and 1 p and a now TV box.
All the media in our house is streamed (no arial) and never ever had a problem, even when I am Maxing out on RS downloads, my wife is still able to watch Iplayer etc etc
BT routers .. Ill stick with them till they cannot serve their purpose. Although It makes me laugh when ppl Bin their BT routers and go out and buy a thompson !!
... so I will bloody change the bloody password or the bloody name of the bloody SSID on it, so nobody else has even visibility of my bloody computers.
Sanctioned freeloaders or not, nobody is riding on my setup for free. They will have to pry my D-Links and Netgears and whatnot routers from my cold, dead hands before getting free access that "won't be charged".
YEAH, RIGHT.
Do you want to give free access, BT? So install your own bloody stuff on the telephone/electricity pole at my doorstep, instead of leeching my 'leccy.
Yeah, free Wi-Fi is all well and ok, until someone hacks the bloody router (or the admin password locked away at some BT cupboard) and start hijacking my gear for botnet usage.
No, I'm not a client of BT, but I wouldn't agree to my ISP making my home a freeloading wi-fi hotspot and promising "not to charge", no matter how hard they promise my stuff is in 'whole different network' of the freeloader wi-fi.
It was bound to happen, and so it did.
I just did a simple BTWIFI FON speed test using my tablet.
Connected through my private home wifi connection I got 33mbit down and 18mbit up.
Then I connected to the same router using the FON connection, 5mbit down and 11mbit up.
But speed tests through a wired connection are in the 79mbit/18mbit area, so fast that I doubt I would ever notice if even several people were actually using the FON connection of my router and maxing out all of their given 5mbit download speed...
Nothing at all to stop this. BT are happy for you to do it. It's a perk of their service.
Only thing is that there's an app for android to log you into FON automatically. But I think not for windows OS, so you'd need to do it manually (web) each time. Oh, and not use wired connection ofc.
You get a unique BT login and pw to use BT Wi-Fi hotspots, and I had assumed that whatever data you downloaded under your personal login would be added to your domestic data usage - so you would still be charged if logged on to your own hotspot. I have an unlimited BT Infinity account, so pay the same no matter how much (or little) I download, so I've never gone into it to find out for certain.
BT Cannot even filter out downloads for BBC iPlayer content on my Youview box on my Infinity account like they said they would in the advertising.
This does mean that I pay for 20GB a month limit and download 200GB + and don't have to pay for it! as they cannot track iPlayer separately.
Who ever said BT are cheap must be mad. I'm moving to PlusNet now and with the cashback I'm getting it is almost £0 for 76MB unlimited fiber for the first year just paying the line rental.
When I first heard of the FON concept it struck me there was an inherent contradiction:
- It's useful to be able to use other people's WiFi when out and about.
- It's tempting to disable the service on your own kit to preserve all that bandwidth for yourself.
So the utility of FON relies on other people being less intelligent (or less selfish) than yourself.
Does that point to deep moral failings on my part?
Unless you get compensation for keeping your FON running, your theory is totally correct. Be it moral, or pecuniary compensation. For me, I'd rather get a discount. And if it gets used A LOT, like, 20% of the time or 200GB, I should get my broadband FOR FREE that month. Firing up a torrent should be enough to get free 'net.
Unless it is also throttled to you, and there is no point in deactivating it, since it won't free bandwidth to you.
When you disable FON it stops you using it on others systems.
You could enable/disable it every time you left/returned. But that requires a login, and tbh it's nit worth the effort.
Remember, if you use ALL bandwidth whilst at home, it lets you so no bandwidth is available to other FON users. So you lose nothing by leaving it on.
Re: It's tempting to disable the service on your own kit to preserve all that bandwidth for yourself.
FON connection speed test whilst no other network activity: 5mbit down, 12mbit up
FON connection speed test whilst main network saturating download bandwidth: 5mbit down, 12mbit up
The wired download speed went from 8.9 megabytes/s to about 8.4 megabytes/s during the FON speed test. So if you're on fibre like me then you'll hardly notice anyone maxing out a FON's connection download potential, but if you're on ADSL then yes there's a chance you could notice your download rates being quite affected.
On an FTTC connection, my speeds are such that the small percentage that might be lost via the throttled FON makes absolutely no difference to me whatsoever. It is extremely rare that the server I am downloading from can reach even 50% of the 75Mbps download speed that online speed checker sites indicate my connection is attaining.
My countryside dwelling GF was just gnawing my scroat savagely the other week after having received a "you've nearly used up all your bandwidth" email from BT and I was swearing blind that I was using my 3 data connection (13MB) and had never touched her achingly slow wireless BT POS. (3MB) Now I know.