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BT Broadband customers to get WiFi sharing

BT Retail has announced a deal with FON, the WiFi sharing community network.
 
The joint venture is to be called BT FON, and according to BT, is the world’s largest WiFi community.  The concept is simple. Any person who agrees to share a small portion of their home broadband connection on a separate, secure channel on their wireless router, becomes part of the FON community that currently boasts 500,000 members worldwide.  They then get to use to any of the 190,000 FON WiFi hotspots around the world.

As part of the joint venture, BT has invested in FON and will also take up a seat on the board of FON.  Other FON investors include Google, Skype, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital.
 
Gavin Patterson, managing director of BT Group said, “This is the start of something very exciting for BT. Today we are launching a people’s network of Wi-Fi, which could one day cover every street in Britain. We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity. 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.”
 
Mark Main, senior analyst at Ovum believes there may be concerns over data usage for those sharing their broadband connection.  Mr Main commented, “Broadband tariffs in the UK are often based on volume of data consumed, and anything that leads to more uncertainty over usage in a highly price-conscious market is not necessarily a good thing. BT’s lowest priced broadband package has a 5GB user limit and is probably a popular choice; a few hours of extra broadband data per month from a BT Broadband FON customer (Fonero in the parlance) perhaps watching a web TV service such as Joost or 4oD could increase data usage to the point where customers are contacted by BT to upgrade to the next tariff.”
 
BT Total Broadband customers will be invited to join BT FON.  In addition, customers who join will also be able to use any of BT’s Openzone WiFi hotspots.