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BT, the UK’s largest ISP, has this feature (Wi-fi sharing on a separate network) built into the routers or “hubs” it supplies, and on by default. The benefit f

BT, the UK’s largest ISP, has this feature (Wi-fi sharing on a separate network) built into the routers or “hubs” it supplies, and on by default. The benefit for people is that they can get Wi-fi in many places — free for BT customers, and a small fee for others. Note that anonymous access isn’t allowed. Look for “hub hotspots” here: https://www.btwifi.com/find/ https://www.btwifi.com/find/ For other ISPs who don’t offer something like this, I don’t think they can stop their customers, the main question around customers offering free Wi-fi to others would focus around liability, I think. Who’s responsible if people do naughty things using your Wi-fi? And will Amazon’s solution help identify a potential bad actor?

45ure 5y ago
>The benefit for people is that they can get Wi-fi in many places — free for BT customers, and a small fee for others. I subscribed to a BT Openreach broadband product, a few years ago, in personal capacity. The service you are describing is called BT WiFi, after being rebranded. For residential customers, it is enabled by default i.e. an opt-out feature, as you have noted. Once you manage to find a way to disable it, you lose the 'benefits'. I found the feature to be extremely disconcerting, especially relating to a pattern of random parked vehicles and people loitering around residential premises at various times of the day, essentially to leech bandwidth off my connection. It would seem that the ISP supplied router (HH6) was designed to create a splintered guest/public WiFi over a VPN. Although the matter of anonymity and liability was of great concern. However, I did not pursue it any further, due to numerous red flags, relating to degradation in QoS and security; latency, contention, poor signal, connection logs with dubious entries etc. It felt prudent to cut loose, rather than justify any perceived benefits. To stay on the point, I am not sure if the Sidewalk branding will travel well long-term, might as well drop the facade and call it: Amazon Shodan. https://fon.com/bt-wifi-with-fon-rebranding/ https://fon.com/bt-wifi-with-fon-rebranding/

45ure 5y ago

>The benefit for people is that they can get Wi-fi in many places — free for BT customers, and a small fee for others. I subscribed to a BT Openreach broadband product, a few years ago, in personal capacity. The service you are describing is called BT WiFi, after being rebranded. For residential customers, it is enabled by default i.e. an opt-out feature, as you have noted. Once you manage to find a way to disable it, you lose the 'benefits'. I found the feature to be extremely disconcerting, especially relating to a pattern of random parked vehicles and people loitering around residential premises at various times of the day, essentially to leech bandwidth off my connection. It would seem that the ISP supplied router (HH6) was designed to create a splintered guest/public WiFi over a VPN. Although the matter of anonymity and liability was of great concern. However, I did not pursue it any further, due to numerous red flags, relating to degradation in QoS and security; latency, contention, poor signal, connection logs with dubious entries etc. It felt prudent to cut loose, rather than justify any perceived benefits. To stay on the point, I am not sure if the Sidewalk branding will travel well long-term, might as well drop the facade and call it: Amazon Shodan. https://fon.com/bt-wifi-with-fon-rebranding/ https://fon.com/bt-wifi-with-fon-rebranding/