Technical Aspects Of Bt Fon

[GSD4ME]

Dear all

I understand what BT FON *is* but am just curious as to how it works.

Where I live, I can see three or four BT router "hubs" that belong to my neighbours, so "Hub4-XXXX", "Hub4-YYYY" etc, each with a secure access – correctly, as the hub is theirs and requires password access.

However, as well as the routers, there is a *single* entry for FON, the BT wifi network. Q: Why just one entry? but please read on.

As an experiment I connected my laptop to FON and can access the internet, as I would with a router – OK the response time was slower but the principle is there regarding internet access.

Fine and dandy, as FON provides a huge, multi-device wifi "cloud" for anyone to access if they need to.

My question is sort of technical in that, if I used FON to connect to the internet, which of my neighbours' router am I using? Or is the packet assembly/disassembly carried out over several of the devices *concurrently*? Or is each access request of mine during a session using a different router each time my PC accesses the net?

And percentage wise, how much does FON "take" from a router to enable the wifi cloud to be available to all, without degrading the performance of an individual device?

Just curious as to the technical details of how FON works

Many thanks

[Sycamore3House]

As a member of BT Wi-fi, you share your wireless connection with other BT Wi-fi and FON members who are in range of your BT Hub. In return, you get access to broadband whenever you're in range of another member's Hub. You can also access BT Wi-fi and FON hotspots. (This was taken from the BT website)

In my lounge I log onto my own hub but in my kitchen or garden I log onto BT wifi FON.

[Tuvok]

You can turn off the FON option on the hub - so perhaps only one person has it turned on.