Bt Openzone (Wifi) or Broadband

Hi everyone,

I am moving into a studio and as such I am going to have to get my own broadband. I am not sure whether I am staying in that place for more than the 6 months contract (for professional reasons) and hence I have to weigh out my options.

When talking to a mate about it he suggested me that maybe I could just register to BP Openzone instead of having to pay to a broadband + line rental.

That would make sense. However, when researching about it it looks like the BP Wifi service is only available in public places.

If any of my future neighbors have BT broadband, would it be able to work as a hotspot? Another point is would this service/connection be good enough to stream movies thorugh netflix, playing games online, etc?

Really appreciate the help.

Jo

In reply to a post by josicosta:

I am moving into a studio and as such I am going to have to get my own broadband. I am not sure whether I am staying in that place for more than the 6 months contract (for professional reasons) and hence I have to weigh out my options.

If you have free internet on your mobile phone (or can add it for a reasonable price), do you have the option to make your phone a WiFi hotspot? If you get 3G or 4G in your new place it may work well enough. My son managed with this for a year.

In reply to a post by josicosta:

If any of my future neighbors have BT broadband, would it be able to work as a hotspot? Another point is would this service/connection be good enough to stream movies thorugh netflix, playing games online, etc?

You should be able to connect to a neighbours BT Wifi hotspot, as long as they are close enough. We live in a rural village and I can 'see' 3 hotspots but only have 1 bar signal (I have managed to connect in the past). If you live in a more built up area with lots of flats your odds will increase. But you should be able to test this when you view flats, just buy a day ticket for £10. BT WiFi

Your connection speed will be limited to 8Mbps and that should be good enough for streaming. But your speed obviously depends on the speed your neighbour receives because the home connection is given priority. For instance, local broadband speeds are about 2-3Mbps, so you would get pretty low speeds if the owner is using their connection. One of our customers who has BT at home managed to connect but could only really check emails. Built up areas may be more likely to have better internet though? Here are some links that may help:

User's experience, UK and abroad.

Speed limit

Best wishes,
Jos

Part of the problem is that you can't guarantee bandwidth. If the owner of the link is doing a big download then you may get virtually no bandwidth and therefore streaming may not work at all or could be constantly buffering. The owner always gets priority over the FON users.