FON

[Bob Jefferson]

Until fairly recently many people had unsecured wireless connections and it was pretty easy to surf for free while out and about, albeit illegally. Nowadays, it is rare to find an unsecured connection. I had a Vodaphone 3g account with my laptop for a while but at £25 a month it was impossible to justify.

I recently joined the BT FON community. As a BT Total Broadband (Option 3) customer I get free and unlimited broadband internet access by connecting via other FON users. You give up part of your own bandwidth to allow other FON users to connect and they in turn reciprocate. It works on a laptop and with my iPod Touch and probably other devices. You can also use it with BT Openzone (500 free minutes per month).

Depending on where you are, you can check the local coverage by typing in an address or post code. For example, this is the current coverage in Portobello. New customers are now automatically opted in to the service. If you are not a BT customer you can still use the service if you purchase a FON router from around £30.



More info at www.btfon.com

[Bob Jefferson]

If you are not a BT customer and you are interested in purchasing a FON router then you can get more info here:

www.fon.com/en/

[wangi]

Noticed both FON and BTOpenZone access points today when setting up the Wii - in this case I think BT have installed an AP in the phone box at the Joppa end of the Prom. The signal strength is too high to be somebody else's wifi...

[Bob Jefferson]

If it is then it doesn't show on BT Openzone's map unless it just hasn't been updated yet. The only one I can find is the Landrover dealers on Inchview Terrace. There are 2 nodes at EH15 2HA, which is up your end of town. Maybe someone is using an antenna to boost their signal?

[Bob Jefferson]