Too many Fons - how to ignore disable

[Creole]

I am a BT Infinity user primarily because I like the FON hotspots which are unmatched as far as I am concerned, BUT THERE IS A PROBLEM.

I am vising a relative who has a long term illness and have been using FON with no problem for around a month, I have even been getting 7mb download and upload speeds, this is achievable if there is a customer who has the 78mb fiber service.

However, they live in a block of flats with additional blocks in every direction.

In mid July it all started to go very very wrong, now I am getting 0.06mb.

I have done some checking and the problem seems to be too many BT custoners in close proximity and BTWifi is NOT connecting to the best source.

Whilst I can see the names of the different Wifi's and their signals I can only see one BTWifi-with-Fon.

So I got myself an app to analyse the wifi signals, this DOES allow me to split out the different BTWifi-with-Fons and with a bit of analysis of Mac Addresses I can even figure out which belong to which BTHub6-NNNN signals.

What I need now is a way to select the BTWifi-with-Fon that I want, either by banning the ones I do not want or selecting a preference, I imagine being able to do this by Mac Address.

IS there a way to do this via BT, I cannot see anything in my portal.

I am even prepared to buy an AC Wireless Bridge if someone can tell me one that allows me to either create a blacklist or preferred connection by mac address.

Ironically the neighbour has the best BTWifi signal but they do not have Fon switched on.

I can understand why people with low bandwidth might turn off FON but surely customers with 78mb are not going to miss a few meg, it is a shame it is not always on for these customers.

At the moment I am able to work from my relative's flat and provide them with some care, but I need a reliable wifi, can anyone tell me how to either disable some FON networks or create a preferred one?

It would be good if BT had a preferred list in the BT Inifinity Web Portal, so if I was in a particular area it would connect to the one of my choice.

[gg30340]

The only way you would be able to get a preferential BTWifi signal would be to log onto each one in turn to establish what it is delivering and if its not good enough you would need to "forget" it and try another. 

It would be impossible for BT to supply a list of "preferred" BTWifi portals not least because as you have found the BT customer is under no obligation what so ever to keep the BTWifi signal transmitting and how would BT be able to measure the strength of signal being transmitted beyond the bounds of the customers property.

[Keith_Beddoe]

Some wireless cards have there own management program which allow you to specify a preferred BSSID (Wireless MAC). You would have to let it manage the connections instead of Windows.

See https://superuser.com/questions/265142/connect-to-wi-fi-access-point-with-specific-mac-address

Google search "getting windows to connect to specific bssid"

[Creole]

@gg30340

You can't log into each one, you only see one "BTWifi-with-Fon" 

If you "forget" it as you suggest it is still there and there is no granular control over one or another, THAT IS MY PROBLEM!  I wish there were!

It is not at all impossible for BT to keep track of the routers you connect to, you log into them after all, it is also not impossible for it to remember when it flips from the 7mb to the 0.63 connection either.

It would be good if the portal asked you what was more important, the signal quality or the speed of the connection (the customer being on fibre or ADSL) 

Clearly when you log in BT authenticates your log in, it would be a simple extension of that to take into consideration the specified wishes of customers.

I was not going suggesting that BT force people to share their connection, just allow me to choose of those that DO share, although there is some argument that in line with Fon, if you do not share you do not get to share.

I am not asking BT to measure the signal beyond the property but merely enhance the service so that customers have a choice.

It is not nuclear physics, each wifi had a connection, even a single router creates two fon connections, what makes it unique is the mac address, so if you have a bad connection you could copy the mac address to your blacklist or add the best mac address to to your preferred list.

See how this router has two connections, F6:6B:EF:43:DE:37 has a better wifi signal but is just wireless N while F6:6B:EF:43:DD:34 has wiressless AC and much better throughput despite a weaker signal.

BTHub6-XXXX	F4:6B:EF:43:DC:36	-81	1	b, g, n	216.7 Mbps
BTWifi-with-FON	F6:6B:EF:43:DE:37	-84	1	b, g, n	216.7 Mbps
BTHub6-XXXX	F4:6B:EF:43:DC:37	-90	36+40+44+48	n, ac	1733.4 Mbps
BTWifi-with-FON	F6:6B:EF:43:DD:34	-91	36+40+44+48	n, ac	1733.4 Mbps

I actually have 6 different BT Routers so there are too many fons, as the signals from these collide it causes the BT Fon system to flip between them but perversely, never to the best one.

Having this implemented would allow BT to crowdsource quality control, give customers more choice and maybe sell a premium version if BT Wifi

[Creole]

@Keith_Beddoe

Thanks for that!

That is more like the solution I am looking for.

I was wondering if there are commands in a "wireless bridge" (router with WB capability) that may allow me to

Normally we can limit Mac addresses for access control but what I am after is being able to do it on the wifi it connects to.

I was hoping that there might be something "under the hood" in a router with Wireless Bridge capability.

This seems to be a good option.

http://blog.jeffcosta.com/2011/09/29/create-a-wireless-n-bridge-with-2-inexpensive-tp-link-routers/