By Natasha Lomas, 15 October 2007 15:30
NEWS
When it comes to sharing home wi-fi, most silicon.com readers are reluctant to spread free wireless love.
Asked if they are happy to share their wi-fi, nearly half (46 per cent) of respondents to a reader poll said it is something they would never do.
This goes against the spirit of community wi-fi sharing organisation FON, which recently linked up with BT to provide 'Foneros' in the UK with access to thousands of free wi-fi hotspots. Foneros are BT broadband customers who agree to securely share their fat pipes with other members of the FON community.
Speaking at the time of the BT-FON tie-in announcement, managing director of BT Group, Consumer, Gavin Patterson, explained how the wi-fi sharing deal would work: "If [Total Broadband customers] 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."
Security is clearly a key issue when it comes to letting strangers piggyback on your wi-fi connection: close to half (41 per cent) of poll respondents said they would sometimes be prepared to share - but only if a secure login were used. This is much better news for BT and FON - provided they can get the message out that their shared wi-fi community is safe.
An unselfish - or some might say foolhardy - 10 per cent of poll respondents said they are always happy to share their wi-fi - and don't even password-protect it.
The poll also reveals how the concept of wi-fi has caught on: just three per cent of respondents admitted to being in the dark about what wireless broadband is.
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Chris Walker
The main reason that I would not share my broadband connection is its abysmal speed. It is slow enough, without an unspecified number of other, unknown, users grabbing the band width. IF BT want to increase wifi coverage in this way, they had first better improve the connection speeds considerably.
2. Julian Nicholls
I'm happy to share my broadband, but only if I don't have any usage cap. I only have WEP on my router now, so theoretically someone could park outside my house, break the encryption, and use my connection now.
If someone downloads 1GB a day via my connection, I'll take the performance hit, but I'm not going to pay extra (in fact I want a discount if I'm sharing), and I'm not going to bow down to a 'fair usage policy' if I have no control over other people's usage.
3. Karen Challinor
so when some criminal drives by and uses my free wifi signal to download some illegal content, which of us gets the knock on the door at 4am from the police ?
if I were not held liable for what my internet connection is used for then I might be inclined to share it providing others did the same
4. anonymous
Because you did not give a viable option. For example would you share your link provided you had priority when you were using it.