Introducing the BT FON Community
British telecom (BT) and FON Community today announced that BT is partnering up with FON. While many telco’s run their own networks of wifi hotspots (e.g. Swisscom Mobile, T-Mobile) and probably consider the community their competitor, BT apparently goes a different route.
“We have integrated FON in BT and now more than more than 3 million Total Broadband customers are invited to join the enormous global community of people sharing their WiFi.”
3 million new Foneros just like that? At first that sounds like a smart move for Fon. But has BT really thought this through? Are customers actually asked whether they want to join and do they have choice to say no? Then probably those 3 million will turn out to be significantly less. As usual, I’m not a legal expert, but this sounds to me like a change of contract conditions which would mean BT’s broadband customers could more or less immediately terminate their contract if they don’t want to become Fonero’s and BT doesn’t want to keep them as non-Fonero’s. And what if these BT customers choose to become Bills, does BT get a share as well?
And of course one would hope that BT really makes sure that the WLAN routers they deliver are properly secured. With such a deployment they should soon become an interesting target for all those blackhats out there.
Update: On the new community’s btfon.com website there’s the answer to the question. Existing BT broadband customers must opt-in to become Foneros. And if they don’t, they can buy vouchers via BT and so BT does get their share.