BT WiFi with FON - No Internet Access

[Keith_Beddoe]

The policy only applies to BT FON/ BT Wifi, not your own router connection.

I assume you are moving into a business unit, so you will be on a BT Business contract, or are you already on BT Business, as the fair usage policy may be different than residential, as they use BT Openzone.

[licquorice]

---

@georgeeast1 wrote:
So what is the 'Fair Usage policy'? See link posted by PP in message 3
If I used the same office as my wife I would be using our router all day. As I said, when I am not in her office I use FON all over the world. That's part of the reason we chose BT. Is it somehow 'not fair' that I am sitting in an place 150 yards from my router and thus cannot use it? The problem should be solved in a couple of months as we are moving home and offices into one unit and will be able to share the same router, but until then iit is intensely irritating to be constantly told that there s no internet. The simple fact is that is is very very unlikely my problem cannot be caused by someone switching his or her router off every now and then. For instance it has dropped out and said NO INTERNET eighteen times in the last hour and then come online again when I start over. I can't think my unknown host comes back every few minutes just to turn his or her router on and off!  See message 4. I suspect you are close to the limit of reception of a strong and stable (TM) signal.

---

[georgeeast1]

That is very interesting Keith, but I doubt I exceed four thousand minutes a month. When I am not using it, FON drops out anyway regardless of minutes usage, so is never on for more than twenty minutes at a time. So I have to connect/relog in all the time anyway. My problem is that it has whole days or half days when it will not give me internet access at all. I would love to log in every thirty minutes as long as it connected me each time, and that, according to out extract quote, is the wort case scenario.

[Keith_Beddoe]

It could be that the host user is utilising all of the bandwidth, and that would leave nothing left for you, as they get priority.

Its more likely that there is too much wireless interference on that channel, so your connection cannot be established.

Its never been a very reliable method of connection, unless you have a strong signal level.

[gg30340]

The BTWifi-Fon signal is supplied from BT Broadband customers Homehubs for the use of BT Broadband customers  who have not opted out of allowing BT Broadband customers to use the BTWifi signal from their Homehub.

The owner of the Homehub that is supplying the signal is under no obligation to ensure that there is a strong reliable signal emitting from their Homehub and BT can not and will not do anything to ensure that there is.

It is most likely that the Homehub that has been broadcasting the BTWifi-Fon signal that you have been using needs to be re-started/refreshed by the owner. This can only be done by the owner and can not be done by BT.

This effectively means that unless you happen to know the owner of the Homehub and can ask them to re-start their Homehub, there is nothing you can do as regards getting the signal back.

If the Internet is important to you and your work you should consider getting a more reliable method of accessing the Internet from your own Internet connection.

There are various options available which would depend on your environment and how much you are willing to pay to make that happen.

A possible cheap no cost option would be to move your own Homehub in your wife's office to the window/wall nearest to your office to see if this increases the strength of the wireless signal being received at your office and if it is it would allow you to connect to that.

[georgeeast1]

Thanks for all that, friends. My only remaining query is why BY cannot transfer me to a home home in range out of the six BT home hubs that show up with a strong signal when I ask to go on line? In toehr words I am offered only one BT FON to click on to, but here are at least six BT home hubs in the immediate vicinity. Our BT hub dows not show up and is only 150 yards away, so the others by logic must be closer? Thanks again

[Keith_Beddoe]

Many people opt out of BT FON/BT Wifi, so their home hubs do not transmit the signal.

Also a hotspot may show up on the map, but the user may be using a third party router which does not transmit those signals.

The hotspot map is based around the number of BT Broadband users in an area, and is not very accurate.

[gg30340]

Bt have nothing to do with what Homehub you can log onto. They do not decide which one you have to use or are able to transfer you to another one.

All BT do is enable the Homehubs to transmit the signal if the Homehub owner has not opted out. After that they have nothing to do with it. 

as Keith has explained, if the Homhub owner opts out or uses a different router then there will be no BTWifi signal.

[georgeeast1]

curioser and curioser.  I just walked down the stirs from my office with the laptop open, and as soon as I got to the bottom, BT Fon invited me to go on line, which I did! So ti has stopped working in my office, where i has been fine for five years, but now works fine ten yards away  downstairs. I will just have to toek al fresco...

[gg30340]

It will be connecting to the BTWifi-Fon signal that is being transmitted because you are now in range for it to connect. It might even be the BTWifi-Fon signal that is being transmitted from your own BT Homehub.