BT Open Zone and BT wi-fi

Hi, today I updated my BT Business Broadband to Infinity 40Mb 100Gb limit. It works well but would like to know how the use by others affects the speed. I have no problem with other BT users having access to it; it's quite a good idea and I sometimes use other people's connections when I'm out.

What I would like to know is how the speed is divided up between the registered user and those others using it; i.e. suppose I am downloading a large file at 40Mb and someone joins the connection and starts doing the same. Do I get priority and do they get a low speed, or what?

Obviously if several people were using it just surfing the web the packets would be so small I doubt anyone would notice a loss of speed.

I also understand that others using the connection does not count to my top usage limit; how does that work?

Thanks in advance,

Mike.

The hotspot is done over a tunnel, i.e. people do not appear as if using your IP address.

As for the speeds I think (but not 100%) it is something like 0.5 Mbps set aside for the hot spot.

Thanks Andrew. I did notice a couple of months ago finding a hot spot locally at 16Mb on my mobile phone so if nobody else was using it does it let you have the maximum available?

Mike.

Anyone logging onto your BT WiFi hotspot will use a VPN from the router back to the BT network. They cannot see anything on your network and you cannot see their traffic. It is effectively a separate connection as far as usage is concerned. Their usage definitely does NOT count towards your usage.

On ADSL the amount available to the HotSpot was originaly just 512kbps but I believe on Infinity lines it is now either 2 or 3 Mbps. So, if you have a 40Mbps connection you will loose around 5-8% at worst. Will you really notice that? and it will only affect you when someone is actually using the HotSpot - at all other times you will get that bandwidth yourself. The same maximum applies whether it is 1, 2 3 or 30 users sharing it and even if you are not using the connection they do not get anything more.

FON owners/users can set the max speed at which "guests" can download. (FYI)

Many thanks for the detailed explanation MHC; very interesting and a good system.

Mike.