BT stealing my electricity!

[Alex01UK]

Hi folks, Happy Halloween! Here's something I've noticed recently, that I thought might be of interest to other BTinternet customers.

I live in the basement flat of a 3 story house, and cannot access any of the BTWiFi / BTWiFi with FON WiFi hotspots. However, when my hub is switched on, I get a really strong signal for both BTWiFi and BTWiFi with FON! I first noticed this when I was at my neighbours in the top floor, and thought it was just because of the height etc, but further investigations reveal that when my hub is off, I get no signal either when in the top floor flat. I'm not sure if this is in the terms and conditions, but it appears that BT are using my hub to provide a wifi hotspot that anybody can access! Is this in the terms and conditions? Is this why it is not possible for me to hide my ssid? I searched everywhere, but could not find the option to change this.

I supposed BT could say yes, but this means, that when I am out, there will be more BTwifi hotspots to connect to, but I am sure it must be affecting my download speed if other users are using my connection, and if somebody is using my hub, without my permission, then it is nothing but theft as it will be using my electricity.

Any thoughts?

From Alex.
--
Alex Armani, Digital Musician.
www.newmatrixism.com

[towy71]

Alex
if you see adverts for BT broadband they boast more "hotspots" than anybody else, that's because all their routers have a sneaky bit set aside to be BTfon or some such malarkey, I'm sure that somewhere in their T&Cs they have given themselves permission and you have signed up unknowingly; if I were a BT customer I would replace their Homehub with my own router so that I had a bit more control, although that might also be a breach somewhere in the T&Cs

[Nuke]

You don't say what hub you have, I am surprised if a BT Home Hub does that (not saying it doesn't - BT are rogues).

Change your hub.

I have a BT business hub and it has both a private and a public channel, the latter of which can be turned off (I havn't bothered as I have only one neighbour within 400yds and I'm not sure they know what a PC is). I got it for about £10 from ebay (where there are loads of unused ones), and they are quite good hardware. They are set up for BTInternet but I hacked it to work generally.

[caineunholy]

see if you can find a way to hack it.
and reset the settings.
is BT stealing from people?