FON and BT have partnered to create the BT FON Community to cover the
entire U.K. with hundreds of thousands of BT FON hotspots.
BT's more than 3 million consumer Total Broadband customers will be
invited to join the global community of people sharing their
broadband.
At launch, new members will be part of an existing community of
500,000 members and will have access to more than 190,000 FON hotspots
worldwide. Anyone joining in will be able to use those FON hotspots
across the world and all the new BT FON hotspots free of charge.
The revolutionary idea for a massive Wi-Fi community, built by
individual people and not a large corporate enterprise, marks BT's
boldest step yet in building extensive broadband coverage outside of
the home or office.
Every person who agrees to share a small portion of their home
broadband connection, by opening up a separate, secure channel on
their wireless router, will be able to share the connection of any
other member. BT Total Broadband customers will also be able to use
BT's premium existing hotspot network BT Openzone, including 12
Wireless Cities.
BT FON aims to build a huge community Wi-Fi network, covering hundreds
of thousands of hotspots, in a short space of time, under the slogan
"Wi-Fi for everyone, I'm in". The secure open Wi-Fi solution was
developed by FON and BT's research labs. BT has invested in FON as
part of the tie-in, joining the company's other investors, which
include Google. BT will also have a seat on the board of FON.
The BT FON deal will accelerate and complement the work BT has already
done with BT Openzone in order to provide the largest possible Wi-Fi
coverage across the UK and the rest of the world.
Gavin Patterson, BT Group managing director, Consumer, said: "This is
the start of something very exciting for BT. Today we are launching a
people's network of Wi-Fi, which could one day cover every street in
Britain.
"We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and
an opportunity. If they are prepared to securely share a little of
their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands
of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny.
"We have built a public Wi-Fi network and 12 Wireless Cities already,
but today we are saying to customers, let's build a Wi-Fi community
together, which covers everywhere and serves everyone."
Martin Varsavsky, FON's Founder and CEO, said of the strategic
partnership: "BT is a fantastic addition to our roster of investors
and highlights the on-going success of FON, the enormous support from
ISPs and Telcos around the world and the strength of our vision to
establish shared Wi-Fi access worldwide. From the beginning FON users
believed in the concept of sharing and in the peoples' ability to
participate in building something important that would benefit
everyone. With BT FON, those beliefs have proved to be well-founded."
More at
http://www.btfon.com/
Regards
Sunil
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