BT hotspot paid £39.00

[Cooky]

Hi I have paid £39for a month to use a hotspot where I am staying and it keeps on disconnecting after 10 mins. Canni stop this from happening

[imjolly]

Are you connecting to. BTWIFI network as that is coming from a customer's hub and there is nothing you or BT can do as customer has priority

[MENGKESHI]

I had/have the same problem. My thread is somewhere here on the forum. In case it helps I feel I had some success on my laptop by forcing my dual band adapter to use just one frequency band only (ie only 5GHz) but to be honest it still happens sometimes and is not as stable as it used to be.

[NigelB72]

As @imjolly says, the BT customers own traffic will take priority over any external WiFi connections so you will get automatically kicked off if they don't have enough spare bandwidth to share with external WiFi connections

[MENGKESHI]

@NigelB72Thanks for the comment. It makes sense that maybe this is the reason due to more people staying in and using internet during the last few months. However, it has literally been fine for years - I can't believe that it never would have happened and now happen all the time. Also on my desktop PC with wifi card it never seems to happen - only really on my laptop, it just feels like available bandwidth is not the reason to me. But perhaps you are right, either way the service now is far worse than it used to be.

[NigelB72]

@MENGKESHI a lot of BT customers are opting out of BT WiFi. This means that they can't access hotspots when they're out and about and other people can't use they're hub as a hot spot. I'd imagine this is due to the increased usage of streaming services and also the misunderstanding that people using their hub as a hotspot are eating their bandwidth when that's not the case

[gg30340]

Have you considered getting a 3g/4g modem. You can get unlimited broadband for about £20 per month. As well as not being dependent on anybody else to broadcast a signal it has the added advantage that you can take the modem with you and use it anywhere you can get a signal. If you don't want a 12 month contract some providers do a 30 day contract with limited data.

[Anonymous]

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@NigelB72wrote:

...and also the misunderstanding that people using their hub as a hotspot are eating their bandwidth when that's not the case

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I'm always keen to learn, so please explain what bandwidth someone connecting to my hub via BT Wi-Fi is using if my broadband is with BT and connected at a speed of 30 Mbps? 

If they are not using some of the 30 Mbps bandwidth I'm paying for to get internet access, what are they using?

[gg30340]

Obviously anybody connecting to a BTWifi hotspot broadcast by your BT hub are using part of your bandwidth. It is impossible to say how much they are using because that depends on what they are doing while connected. ie if they are streaming it will use more than reading an email.

Regardless of what they are doing, if you require all your bandwidth and there is no surplus then the BTWifi network will not be supplied any bandwidth. Your network always has priority.

The BTWif connection is limited to a maximum speed of 10Mbps if the connection can support that speed ad there is also a "Fair usage" policy of 10,000 minute in a month which if exceeded the user will need to re-log on every 30 minutes.

https://www.btwifi.co.uk/help/faqs/

[Anonymous]

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@gg30340wrote:

Obviously anybody connecting to a BTWifi hotspot broadcast by your BT hub are using part of your bandwidth. It is impossible to say how much they are using because that depends on what they are doing while connected. ie if they are streaming it will use more than reading an email.

Regardless of what they are doing, if you require all your bandwidth and there is no surplus then the BTWifi network will not be supplied any bandwidth. Your network always has priority.

The BTWif connection is limited to a maximum speed of 10Mbps if the connection can support that speed ad there is also a "Fair usage" policy of 10,000 minute in a month which if exceeded the user will need to re-log on every 30 minutes.

https://www.btwifi.co.uk/help/faqs/

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Very helpful, thank you.

So there is no misunderstanding, the hotspot (that can be accessed either for free by BT customers who have opted in or with a payment by literally anyone), does use the same bandwidth that I am already paying for, assuming any is available and within certain QoS parameters. Simples.

I am amazed that some customers are happy with this (I assume most are blissfully unaware), but each to their own.