BT Group chatting up FON for partnership

Good news all 'round for BT Fusion, BT Broadband and FON lovers of the UK: BT Group is reportedly in talks with FON for a hefty partnership that extends the services of both companies extensively. In exchange for allowing BT Fusion users to replace those pricey Vodafone minutes on their phones with free FON WiFi UMA lovin', BT will officially give its blessing to users sharing their BT bandwidth over FON -- ISPs usually frown on the practice -- and even go so far as to push a FON firmware upgrade to its own users' broadband routers. Subscribers can opt out, but we're sure plenty of users will bite at the chance, since signing up for FON not only gives you profit sharing from people who pay to use your access point, but also gives you free WiFi access to other FON routers. With the 10,000 FON users already in Britain, the country could become one of the top spots for free-ish WiFi, and might give BT one of the best UMA services around, but neither company is talking about the deal just yet, so we'll wait for everything to be legit before we do our little "free WiFi party" dance.

[Via WNN; thanks R Gomez]

[Olivier @ Feb 15th 2007 1:00PM]

Woohoo!
Only problem is that this will kill BT's golden goose: Openzone or whatever it is which charges +£6 per hour of wifi versus Fon's €3/day scheme

[Iain @ Feb 15th 2007 1:25PM]

There will be at catch - there alawys is with EVIL BT! Not that I am bitter about them.

[David Li @ Feb 15th 2007 3:03PM]

This just in: BT more libreal than Comcast
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FON#ISPs_that_do_NOT_allow_FON_service_.28by_country.29

:'(

[andrew @ Feb 16th 2007 12:08AM]

Free WiFi dance party? What about free UMA dance party? UMA is far more exciting then free WiFi.

[Evan @ Feb 16th 2007 11:58AM]

actually, with FON, you can either get a cut of the fees from others' use of your router (being a Bill) or get free access to all the other routers (being a Linus), not both. While initially confusing, the analogy to Messrs. Gates and Torvalds does actually help you remember the policies.