BT is encouraging its business customers to share their Wi-Fi connections via their BT Business Total Broadband. There are about 170,000 business customers who could offer Wi-Fi for free as a courtesy to visitors to their offices. BT says the customers could earn revenue by charging for Wi-Fi, but to make a tidy profit, a business needs a lot of people using the Wi-Fi network. Moreover, charging for Wi-Fi access could anger customers and visitors. I wonder how many BT customers have enough traffic to make it worth the effort of installing and maintaining a billing system. The only advantage I see is that BT’s broadband customers will get a free firmware upgrade that allows them to separate guest and office traffic on their Wi-Fi network, like FON does with its routers that provide separate SSIDs for home and visitor use.
For more about BT’s offer, click here.
hmmm… esme, I’m sure you already know about this: http://btfon.com/