BT and FON turn the UK into one large Wifi hotspot

BT AND FON have launched a new partnership - BTFON. It's bringing the traditional FON Wifi sharing idea to all of BT's three million broadband customers.

Starting next week, BT will be rolling out a firmware update to their Home Hub Wireless routers with the new FON feature-sets onboard. This will be enabled within time for those who have joined BTFON and disabled for those who haven't.

It's similar to existing FON Wireless router setups. As in their will be two channels, a Red channel at 512KB/sec for BTFON users and a Green channel for personal use. The FON side has Open Wi-Fi authentication, a lower priority which is completely separate from the other channel - with access to the broadband only. The Green side just works as normal Wifi, with all the security expected and a QoS engine.

And from today BT Total Broadband users can opt into a new scheme at www.btfon.com, where a small portion of their Wireless bandwidth can be used for free surfing to existing customers on the same package, along with current FON users.

This is open to all those on the BT deal that launched in June last year, running up to a max of 8Mbit/s. The lightest package of which costs £17.99 a month, providing 250 minutes of free BTFON surfing on other FON or BTFON hotspots. Option 2 comes in at £22.99 provides 350mins and Option 3 at £24.99 has unlimited minutes.

On the reverse side, all the FON users have unlimited access to the BTFON Wifi network. Where as a FON Wireless router cost as low as €34.44/£23.86/$39.95, although you still need broadband on top of that.

FON has been kicking around since February 2006 and has now amounted 500,000 members and some 190,000 FON hotspots around the world. Users volunteering to be a part of BTFON network will also benefit from all of this too.

Both are aiming to build a large community Wifi based in the UK as a part of this deal, under the slogan "Wi-Fi for everyone, I'm in". All of which compliments their existing work that has already done with BT Openzone.

This has been a joint effort by FON and BT research labs. As a part of the tie-in BT has now invested in the company and earned themselves a seat on the board.

Similar partnerships have been cropping up all over the world, Time Warner Cable in the US and Neuf of France of late. Expect more on the cards soon. µ