BT Turns Its Business Customers' Networks Into Public Hotspots

from the changeroo dept

British ISP BT is apparently "updating" some of its business customers' WiFi hubs and turning them into part of its OpenZone hotspot network. Sounds great, until you realize they're simply pushing the software update onto some 200,000 or so customers' hubs, and leaving them to opt out if they don't want them to be used as public hotspots. What's even greater is the commercial arrangement, if business owners should decide they want to utilize the "service": they buy prepaid vouchers from BT, then can either give them away or sell them. That's right: they pay BT for their bandwidth, then have to buy vouchers to resell or give away, in essence paying for the bandwidth a second time. There's no mention of how the customers could offer a free hotspot, beyond the double-billing scheme. But hey, that's a crazy idea for a business owner, anyway, so BT's doing its customers a further favor by precluding it as an option.

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