Can't turn off BTWifi with Fon

The last firmware upgrade turned it back on - I've logged into my BT account but can't find the place to turn it off again. The BT page doesn't seem to have the locations suggested by googling.

I managed to find where to do it but the web site is not loading properly so hard to direct you there.

To be honest, don't understand why anyone would want to opt out as it is such a darn useful feature to have with no downsides other than a very small fraction of your broadband being made available for others to use.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

To be honest, don't understand why anyone would want to opt out

And there was me thinking why would anyone want to opt in its like sharing your car with strangers everyday and them not paying for any of the petrol.

Using your terminology I'm pretty sure that over the years I've used far more of others petrol albeit only a drop at a time whilst wandering around London than others have mine. It's a very useful feature to have and use.

In reply to a post by dect:

In reply to a post by gomezz:

To be honest, don't understand why anyone would want to opt out

And there was me thinking why would anyone want to opt in its like sharing your car with strangers everyday and them not paying for any of the petrol.

LMAO - i like that one .

On Virgin Media it makes a little bit more sense as they give (or at least used to) it's own dedicated channel which has no effect on your own speed. However, on BT I wouldn't want anyone talking my already low capacity away from me. Even if it's only 5mb or so.

I've always turned them off on either service as my tin foil hat wearing brain thinks, what if someone could find a way to hack in and cross the VLAN's somehow.

Edited by gary333 (Mon 08-Jun-20 15:33:24)

I have it turned ON and I use plenty from others customers when out ... so why not. The amount used is small and unless you are trying to stream at full bandwidth all day you will never notice.

In my case, the other user would need to be parked in my drive to even see the connection. My neighbours can probably connect however they have 70+Mbps connection of their own so unlikely to need mine.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I have it turned ON and I use plenty from others customers when out ... so why not. The amount used is small and unless you are trying to stream at full bandwidth all day you will never notice.

In my case, the other user would need to be parked in my drive to even see the connection. My neighbours can probably connect however they have 70+Mbps connection of their own so unlikely to need mine.

When I'm out I use my phone contract allowance or the restaurant's wifi. Why should I need to use someone's home network?

And when there is no mobile coverage and you are not in a restaurant ... then what?

In reply to a post by MHC:

And when there is no mobile coverage and you are not in a restaurant ... then what?

Then I get on with normal life. I don't need to be glued to Facebook or whatever every minute of the day and night.

In reply to a post by michaelh:

In reply to a post by MHC:

And when there is no mobile coverage and you are not in a restaurant ... then what?

Then I get on with normal life. I don't need to be glued to Facebook or whatever every minute of the day and night.

Some of us don't do "Facebook" and do use connections for work - I often get to places where mobile coverage in nil but will normally find a BT hotspot.

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by michaelh:

In reply to a post by MHC:

And when there is no mobile coverage and you are not in a restaurant ... then what?

Then I get on with normal life. I don't need to be glued to Facebook or whatever every minute of the day and night.

Some of us don't do "Facebook" and do use connections for work - I often get to places where mobile coverage in nil but will normally find a BT hotspot.

You use random people's home broadband for your work..................

Don't know what job you do - maybe you drive a white van but when I was working, my employers (a large public authority) would have regarded using an unsecured connection as a disciplinary offence due to Data Protection issues etc

Edited by michaelh (Mon 08-Jun-20 21:14:50)

You are NOT using their home network, you are using a BT Hotspot which happens to go down the same piece of copper. Maybe your employer should get to properly understand data protection - it does not contravene it at all.

but when I was working, my employers (a large public authority) would have regarded using an unsecured connection as a disciplinary offence due to Data Protection issues etc

.... but by the same token, you find it acceptable to use

the restaurant's wifi.

????

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

but when I was working, my employers (a large public authority) would have regarded using an unsecured connection as a disciplinary offence due to Data Protection issues etc

.... but by the same token, you find it acceptable to use

the restaurant's wifi.

????

Only in a personal capacity - never for work

When I was with BT I had no interest in the 'communal' wifi and didn't know I could turn it off even if I wanted to. Then in 2014 I found myself in hospital at one hour's notice, there to remain for weeks. One of my lovely nurses remarked one day that I was in one of the only two wards which had been equipped for wifi. It made my long stay much more bearable.

I'm with PN these days but use the BT HH6 router which has wifi enabled by default. I can't turn it off without a BT account but I'm very happy for someone to use a facility which was of such benefit to myself.

Work connections generally use a VPN of some kind because no 3rd party network is trusted. Therefore one 3rd party network is much the same as another.

When we had BT, did some tests to check how the QOS worked with BTWifi. When the home network was saturated, the BTWifi basically ground to a halt.
So as a separate connection independent of the home network and with the QOS, it has virtually no impact on the home network.

I see it as part of the deal. You don't pay a lot for the router and in return the router does FON. If you don't like it, stop using the BT router and buy your own. It won't be locked to BT, it won't be configured for FON and if you choose well it'll work better too.

BT help page here: https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/how-do-i-opt-out-o...

If these instructions don't work, you're best off raising it on https://community.bt.com/

This thread got me to investigating what speed I could get from my nearest nabours FON, the nearest have 'Ultrafast' IIRC 150MB products, putting my cheapo 'long range' wifi antenna in my window got me roughly 8.5/8.5 download/upload, I'm not sure if FON limits it to this speed or the wifi, seems odd that is roughly symmetrical. Another day I'll get closer with less in way to see what I get.

I just connected to my own routers FON (sitting about 2 metres away from me) and on speedtest.net got 9/9.and on TBB speedtest it was 9/3.5. The same speedtests when connected normally for speedtest.net is 147/30 and TBB 146/29.

So, it looks like your test at 8.5/8.5 is probably pretty much top whack for BT FON allowed speeds.

Have just run a quick test here (Speedtest.net). If needed I use a WAP that is not the one offering guest or BTWiFi and did not want to have to find the passcodes for it so that is not shown.

Guest 17.52 Down 14.55 Up
BT WiFi 17.45 Down 14.55 Up


Not too scientific as my wife is teaching on a Zoom session with a connection which will be taking some upstream but this did not affect her link.
Normal upstream is about 17Mbps.

I will try again later when she is not working to see how much more is used - if available

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

BT help page here: https://www.bt.com/help/broadband/how-do-i-opt-out-o...

The web page is out of date. I've found no way to turn it off since the last update.

I had previously turned it off twice before in previous years. But the option just isn't there. The only option that is there is the page to sign up to Fon as a non-BT person.

So I'm stuck with it on.

I've noticed that I seem to have a higher through-put with Fon on.

Interesting, perhaps they had a quiet change of policy to not allow people to opt out.

In reply to a post by michaelh:

In reply to a post by MHC:

And when there is no mobile coverage and you are not in a restaurant ... then what?

Then I get on with normal life. I don't need to be glued to Facebook or whatever every minute of the day and night.

Good answer.

I was with BT years ago and I turned off fon as well. I found that it was not that useful as the ones I could pick up in town was such a low signal it could not be used.
Anyway, even our city centre have some sort of public Wi-Fi.

I find the domestic BT wi-fi hotspots incredibly useful when parked up in the villages round here where the mobile coverage is iffy. Just park up by the blind wall of the donor house so you are not intimidating the householder through their windows.

I also find BT-Wifi very useful when out and about.

Not everybody has lots of data on their mobile phone contracts, or indeed any contract at all. I can't imagine why you would want to turn it off, under most circumstances, it's one of the reasons I went back to BT.

I did read of one chap who was at the side of a campsite, and had people jumping his garden wall to use the wifi - but I think I would have found other ways to deter that!

As said before, it doesn't impact on household wifi as it only utilises unused bandwidth. If you max out the home broadband connection, BT-Wifi goes dead.

When connected, it seems to max out at 9Mb up/down for me.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

I find the domestic BT wi-fi hotspots incredibly useful when parked up in the villages round here where the mobile coverage is iffy. Just park up by the blind wall of the donor house so you are not intimidating the householder through their windows.

i could never really get a decent signal, but this was over 10 years ago if not more, but I doubt things have changed much, around here. i can understand for some people it may be useful

In reply to a post by sparky_paul:

I also find BT-Wifi very useful when out and about.

Not everybody has lots of data on their mobile phone contracts, or indeed any contract at all. I can't imagine why you would want to turn it off, under most circumstances, it's one of the reasons I went back to BT.

I did read of one chap who was at the side of a campsite, and had people jumping his garden wall to use the wifi - but I think I would have found other ways to deter that!

As said before, it doesn't impact on household wifi as it only utilises unused bandwidth. If you max out the home broadband connection, BT-Wifi goes dead.

When connected, it seems to max out at 9Mb up/down for me.

I only have 2GB on my mobile contract. Back in the day when I was with BT, I think it was 50MB or something like that, but then it was a HTC Windows phone 6 or something like that and the whole point was to use Fon, but there was just never enough coverage where I went.

I doubt to be honest it would be much different for me now.

My problem with fon or BT -wi-fi or what ever they want to call it was that it used to confuse my computer Wi-fi, one of the reason why I went to Ethernet. Looking at my phone now, there is 4 Bt-wi-fi hotspots, two are pretty strong as they are next doors, but two are weak, my computer used to try to connect to them instead of my own network,

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I only have 2GB on my mobile contract. Back in the day when I was with BT, I think it was 50MB or something like that, but then it was a HTC Windows phone 6 or something like that and the whole point was to use Fon, but there was just never enough coverage where I went.

I doubt to be honest it would be much different for me now.

I'm in a rural area, and out here BT Wifi works very well, usually see the full 9Mb anywhere in the village. Most people are on BT because of the reduced ISP choice, so there's lots of good access points available.

In town, it's a bit different. There are more routers visible, but less of them are BT. At my parents house, I can see only one BT in range, and it definitely feels a bit congested at the weekends, speeds are up and down. It's never failed to work so far though, and the app connects you to it automagically. I'm finding it invaluable.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

My problem with fon or BT -wi-fi or what ever they want to call it was that it used to confuse my computer Wi-fi, one of the reason why I went to Ethernet. Looking at my phone now, there is 4 Bt-wi-fi hotspots, two are pretty strong as they are next doors, but two are weak, my computer used to try to connect to them instead of my own network,

Can't say I have ever had that problem, and we have had BT Wifi hotspots around us for years. We also have loads of devices connected by wifi... wifi adapter should be able to cope with a few open networks nearby!

With very poor mobile signal, it's handy to log onto nabours BT-FON if my TalkTalk line goes down, does confuse the TT 'chat' operatives.

In reply to a post by gomezz:

I find the domestic BT wi-fi hotspots incredibly useful.

Me too. A row of 5 houses is odds on to have a hotspot on one of them. Absolutely fantastic feature. Sharing is what the internet used to be about and happy to share my hotspot with peeps.

Able to stream sports TV if at work but parked up during slack time. Not that there is any slack time any more ... every day is as busy as Christmas at the moment.