OT: When choosing an SSID for your wifi network dont choose..

'Police Survey 1B'

Is a good one :D

I'm tempted by XYZ-district-council-noise-monitoring

Piss-poor idea.

on 07/11/2016, The Natural Philosopher supposed :

That is one which often shows up here. It shows as open, but with no internet connection. What are they?

It piggy-backs on the broadband connection of anyone using BT Broadband (retail), unless they've opted out. If you're not a BT retail customer, you'll see it (no authentication) but won't be able to use it.

That's BTs public wifi. Basically BT installs broadband in your house and for a reduction, allows others to access it using some code.

If you are on one of BTs packages you can access it yourself on a roaming basis

Well that depends. It means BT customers can roam freely and have access to wifi almost everywhere.

It means other people can use your broadband and slow it down

Thanks, that makes sense..

FON is a seperate global system, You can(could?) buy a Fonera that also shared a bit of your bandwidth with otheres and provided that was live you could access any other FON hotspot around the world including those hosted by BT hubs. A Fonera was a one off payment of about £30, it was never really pushed in the UK and BT would quite like to bury it to drive customers to them.

These days almost anywhere that you are likely to want to use WiFi already has it.

Other poeple don't get very much 512 kbps springs to mind.

I think you can still buy them outside the UK.

If you try really hard you can probably buy one here still. I bought mine 2014 and even then it was quite difficult.

FON works very well for me, occasionally in the UK but more often and usefully in France where it is provided by SFR.

If you're not a BT customer, you can use it, but only after paying for time when their interception page appears. I think the cheapest rate is ?5 for one hour, and a sliding scale for longer periods. BT customers key in a password and get it free. Data rate is low.

In message , Dave W writes

I used it a few months ago, when staying at my mother's flat. I think it was about 17 pounds for three days. It worked, up to a point. I was outside a town centre, so not many access points, and connection depended, obviously, on the router in question being connected, and having a connection. Both were variable.

Data rate was certainly not high, but more than adequate for receiving e-mail and general browsing. Would I use it again? Well, yes, given the limited choices available. I would hate to live with it longer term, though. There were times when I just could not get a stable connection, but when I did, it was acceptable.

One interesting point was a three day pass did not have to be three consecutive days, although each day was a 24 hour block, so you can't just use a few hours one day then carry over the remaining hours.