Adventures with BT wifi

[hrym]

BT wifi is a tricky thing and there are several threads elsewhere on the forum that report tales of woe getting connected.  Some of these may be down to an entirely understandable misapprehension of what the system is, so let's see if we can shed any light on this.   I'm asking for contributions, but please don't post rants about it, as we know it's can of worms.  We're just looking to accumulate a pool of what we do know.

What it is

BT/Openzone wifi comes in a variety of flavours, but all under the same branding, which is, I think, where the confusion starts.  There are premium hotspots in places such as Game, Starbucks, Carphone Warehouse* and some BT payphones.   Many, or perhaps all of those are publicly available - Starbucks, for instance, want all their customers to be able to connect regardless of their service provider and there, the system works the same as O2 wifi, which is available in many hotels, shops and malls.

Then there are the sites that are accompanied by another network that is suffixed B, H or FON.   I believe B is business, H home; FON is a sharing system that's available to participating BT broadband customers only.  These sites are private ones, not operated by BT and not set up for general access. Business ones may offer a password for their own customers, of course.

On top of that, there are separate hotspots that usually pop up in motorway service areas and are BT branded.  These seem to require a separate login but, once you've set that up, you can connect to all of them.

The My Vodafone app (and if you have a Windows phone, I feel your pain.)

This will show you available hotspots where you are.  If your device is picking up a BT/Openzone hotspot that doesn't appear in the app, it'll be one of the ones that's not available to you as a Vodafone customer.  The app will connect you automatically to any available hotspot, but only if you have that option turned on in the wifi settings section.   For no reason I can discern, it's off by default and also reverts to being off after an app update.  So turn it on if you want it to work!

What you see isn't necessarily what you get

If your device is picking up a hotspot that isn't on the app or the coverage map (which you can find a link to at the bottom of the page), don't waste your time trying to connect.  If it's accompanied by others with a suffix, you'll need the local login to connect.   If this is a hotel or a cafe, they'll be able to give it to you.   If you try to connect, you'll see a drop-down list and Vodafone will be on it, which will quite reasonably think you only need to enter your My Vodafone login to be away.   It won't work - at least, I've never got it to and it looks as though the drop-down is a standard BT thing that appears regardless of availability.

So what do I actually get?

Well, this is the sixty-four thousand dollar question!   Your contract may specify an amount of BT wifi but, if you can only use premium hotspots and these are free anyway (eg Starbucks), do you gain any benefit apart from maybe seamless connection via the My Vodafone app?  This is where I'd like input form other users.  Have you ever managed to connect to a non-premium hotspot using your Vodafone login?  I'm excluding people who may be able to connect because they're BT broadband customers and have access that way.   I'm also interested in whether, if you have auto-connect turned off in the My Vodafone app, you can use your Vodafone credentials at a hotspot it should connect to (once again, eg Starbucks)?

Conclusion

I suspect that the inclusive BT/Openzone wifi offering is actually pretty limited.   In general, I rarely find myself within range of a hotspot, which is what has made testing difficult.   A lot of them seem to be in smaller venues that are often in side streets, so I tend to miss out on them.  I've tried with Carphone Warehouse* shops, but a lot of the ones I see are in shopping malls that have their own wifi which is stronger and drowns out the more local BT signal.  So, if you're out and about and fancy a challenge, please report back with any successes.  Failures, unless they're things you really should be able to connect to, are less interesting, simply because there are a lot of them and, in many/most cases, I think we know the reason why.

The Cloud

I can't end without mentioning this.   You can get a free account and they have a Fastconnect app that'll connect you seamlessly.   There are far more hotspots - I've progressed down high streets hopping neatly from one to the next - and they also seem to have better range.  If you want wifi when you're out and about, this is the way to go.   Unlike things like O2, you can't sign up on the fly, you need to have an account but, once you do, you're away.

* Interestingly, my local Carphone Warehouse has now disappeared from the coverage map.