BT Learns to Spell Phone F.O.N.

BT announced today that they have teamed up with WiFi sharing community FON, which means that all BT Total Broadband customers can become part of the FON community. 

FON, if you have not come across it before, is an interesting social experiment in WiFi sharing that has 200,000 hotspots worldwide.  When you sign up at FON you get a very low cost WiFi router that you can plug in to your broadband connection, and then other FON members that are nearby can share your bandwidth.  If you are a sharing member, you get points when people surf with you, and then you can use that credit to ride on other FON hotspots when you are out and about.  It is also possible to buy credit and surf on the FON network even if you do not share your own WiFi.

BT will be bringing their marketing muscle to the project, and also importantly their own Total Broadband equipment (such as the BT Home Hub) can be used for FON, so that you no longer need to order a WiFi device from FON to start taking part.  From today BT allow you to opt-in to BT FON to start sharing.

On a broader canvas, this is an interesting experiment in picocell technology.  As wireless Internet speeds get faster in the future, your proximity to the base station will define what performance you get to the Internet.  This means that high speed wireless technologies like WiMax and 3G HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) will not give good coverage if service providers just build a handful of giant towers; it will be rather important to have picocells, or small capacity base stations that are available in large numbers.  Actually, what could be a better approach then turning WiFi-equipped homes and businesses into a picocell network?