Guide to getting online with FON / BT WiFi & SFR in France

[Addie]

Hi all,

There have been lots of threads posted by Funsters recently with regards to getting online with FON and so as I had a bit of time over the weekend I wanted to put together as much information as I could in one place.

I have written an updated guide on our blog which covers the main points of interest about the scheme. Some BT Broadband customers have struggled to get online when in Europe but included below is a verified fix which almost 20 of our customers now having confirmed it resolved their issue.

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As you probably already know FON is an large network of free co-operative WiFi hotspots across the UK and Europe. The network has grown to almost 13,000,000 hotspots now available to members, with Greece recently added in the form of telecoms provider OTE.

If you're a BT Broadband customer you will already get access as part of your package, but if you're not you can still join for a one off charge of £34 by sharing a little of your home broadband using a FON Box.

With a WiFi booster you greatly increase your chance of being able to locate and connect to a FON hotspot, hence why we continue to recommend FON. While everyones experience varies, on the whole our customers have great reports for getting online in France. However this information is relevant to everyone regardless of what device you may own.

I hope this information is of use


Adam & Sophie
Motorhome WiFi

 

[chaser]

Right I will give this one more go , I will do to the letter what you say, because up to yet nothing I have done has worked, problem is how do we know if it is working or not till we get abroad, when it will be to late then.:thumb:

 

[Addie]

Right I will give this one more go , I will do to the letter what you say, because up to yet nothing I have done has worked, problem is how do we know if it is working or not till we get abroad, when it will be to late then.:thumb:

Once opted out (wait 24 hours) and then opted back in, contact FON directly with your @btinternet.com address and ask them to check that your account is cleared for access in France :thumb:

Do ensure that in France you are logging in using the FON area as pictured on the blog post, not the SFR area as this is at odds with what you do in the UK :thumb:

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[chaser]

Well I have gone to your first link and came up with an error straight away

 

[chaser]

The bt status one

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[chaser]

God , I am just going to have to give this up , I shall be old before my timeoh:

 

[Addie]

Links work for me - to confirm they are:

1.) Opt out of FON / BT WiFi using the link below. Once completed, log out of your account:
www.bt.com/wifi/secure/status.do

2.) Wait for 24 hours and then visit the URL below to ‘Opt in’ to FON / BT WiFi again:
www.bt.com/wifi/secure/index.do (not the end is index rather than status above).

 

[chaser]

Yes that one works , the other one took me to a site with your headline but with a big Red Cross on it. Anyway opted out now so see what happens now.
Cheers

 

[Allanm]

We have a Fon box and have just come back from Brittany. We managed to get onto Fon networks all over the place, very easily. I just walk around with my phone searching for Fon networks, then connect as Addie says onto the yellow Fon network pages. Easy peasy.

Allan

 

[hilldweller]

I swapped to BT but kept my own router, coz it was all set up how I wanted it.

So I don't act as a hotspot. Does this mean BT will block my FON or other hotspot use ?

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[DP+JAY]

Links work for me - to confirm they are:

1.) Opt out of FON / BT WiFi using the link below. Once completed, log out of your account:
www.bt.com/wifi/secure/status.do

2.) Wait for 24 hours and then visit the URL below to ‘Opt in’ to FON / BT WiFi again:
www.bt.com/wifi/secure/index.do (not the end is index rather than status above).

Thanks again for the email the other day, all working again now.
We found it worked even better in belgium & connected automaticaly with a faster connection too.

 

[Sidney]

I swapped to BT but kept my own router, coz it was all set up how I wanted it.

So I don't act as a hotspot. Does this mean BT will block my FON or other hotspot use ?

No. You're a BT customer. That's enough for it to work.

But you must use your BT email address and password.

 

[Addie]

So I don't act as a hotspot. Does this mean BT will block my FON or other hotspot use ?

I don't 100% know the answer here and something that I have asked BT but never got a straight answer with regards to, so would be interested in knowing your experience. The FON box has a 'heartbeat' which reports its online presence to FON periodically, but I would be surprised if the BT HomeHub has this.

As I understand it access to FON is a benefit by virtue of being a BT Broadband Customer / Account holder being "opted in" to the scheme and so that should be sufficient. However a number of the customers who have reported issues to us have reported not using (or turning off) their Home Hubs and so I aired on the side of caution with the blog post.

While it does seem a bit mean not broadcasting a FON hotspot for others to use, especially if you hope to take advantage of the scheme which we requires that others are doing so, I can't blame anyone for wanting to change their BT Home Hub for a better router!

Adam

 

[Reallyretired]

I have found that if I turn my BT home hub (Infinity) off when we're away for a bit, it takes days to get back up to speed again. I just leave it on now.

 

[scotjimland]

I don't 100% know the answer here and something that [HI]I have asked BT but never got a straight answer [/HI]with regards to, so would be interested in knowing your experience. The FON box has a 'heartbeat' which reports its online presence to FON periodically, but I would be surprised if the BT HomeHub has this.

[HI]As I understand it access to FON is a benefit by virtue of being a BT Broadband Customer / Account holder being "opted in" to the scheme and so that should be sufficient. [/HI]However a number of the customers who have reported issues to us have reported not using (or turning off) their Home Hubs and so I aired on the side of caution with the blog post.

While it does seem a bit mean not broadcasting a FON hotspot for others to use, especially if you hope to take advantage of the scheme which we requires that others are doing so, I can't blame anyone for wanting to change their BT Home Hub for a better router!

Adam

I have BT broadband and just checked my account..


the straight answer
.

If you opt out you will lose the benefit of unlimited Wi-Fi usage from BT Wi-fi hotspots.

BROKEN LINK

and I have no problem with the BT home hub

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[hilldweller]

I don't 100% know the answer here and something that I have asked BT but never got a straight answer
Adam

If you asked "what day is it" you'd not get a straight answer !

 

[chaser]

If you asked "what day is it" you'd not get a straight answer !

I have rang bt many times about this fon thing, you all know and are fed up hearing about how long I have been on to this, and they just don't seem to understand what fon is, I think I know more about it than anyone on there now, they seem to think you have to go to a bt website to connect, but how are you supposed to do that in France if you havnt got a connectionoh:oh:

 

[JeanLuc]

A question for Addie I suspect.
I do not use BT as my ISP and have no intention of switching to them. I use a Netgear DG834G V3 WiFi Router (old but reliable). If I understand your earlier post correctly, I can buy a Fon Box and plug it into the Netgear router via a Cat5 ethernet cable. It will then act as a subsidiary WiFi access point. Do I have to switch off the Netgear WiFi access and rely solely on the Fon point, or can I continue to use the Netgear WiFi internally and have the Fon broadcast for external use? The Fon external access point is largely irrelevant anyway since I cannot imagine many people wanting to try and access WiFi where we live, but the reciprocal facility would be useful when travelling of course.

Many thanks for your already helpful information.

 

[Sidney]

My mum has BT wifi. She does not use a BT router.

I use her BT username and password - it always works.

Maybe it because she has not opted out of BT WiFi?

 

[Addie]

A question for Addie I suspect.
I do not use BT as my ISP and have no intention of switching to them. I use a Netgear DG834G V3 WiFi Router (old but reliable). If I understand your earlier post correctly, I can buy a Fon Box and plug it into the Netgear router via a Cat5 ethernet cable. It will then act as a subsidiary WiFi access point. Do I have to switch off the Netgear WiFi access and rely solely on the Fon point, or can I continue to use the Netgear WiFi internally and have the Fon broadcast for external use? The Fon external access point is largely irrelevant anyway since I cannot imagine many people wanting to try and access WiFi where we live, but the reciprocal facility would be useful when travelling of course.

Many thanks for your already helpful information.

Nothing would change for you, other than the addition of the FON box sat beside your existing router, you would still connect to it and use it as normal. There will be two 'new' networks visible on your devices - a new private network (password on the reverse) and a new public network.

There may be a small added benefit in that the private FON network broadcasted would be Wireless N - a faster, further reaching network then your DG834G can produce which is only Wireless G, but in general I would just ignore it and get on with enjoying FON hotspots elsewhere. :thumb:

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[chaser]

Well addie, you may be a genius:thumb::thumb: but saying that I will have to reserve judgement till we get there, but I have just opted in and gone to the fon page and it let me login, now wether that's the same as connecting when there we shall have to see:thumb::thumb:
Thanks

 

[JeanLuc]

There may be a small added benefit in that the private FON network broadcasted would be Wireless N - a faster, further reaching network then your DG834G can produce which is only Wireless G, but in general I would just ignore it and get on with enjoying FON hotspots elsewhere. :thumb:

Many thanks for the reply Addie,
I had not thought of that - a good idea to try out. :thanks2:
One reason I stick with the DG834G is that I have read reports of later N models tending to drop the connection when sat on an ADSL1 slow line. Ours gives me about 2.3 mbps at best (Speedtest.net) and is based on a 30 year-old BT line installation. Our BT cabinet in the village is at the end of the exchange line and there are no signs of it being upgraded yet. We suffer from living in one county but being supplied by an exchange in another, so we do not figure in either county's broadband upgrade plan! :Sad:

 

[TheCaller]

I swapped to BT but kept my own router, coz it was all set up how I wanted it.

So I don't act as a hotspot. Does this mean BT will block my FON or other hotspot use ?

Other replies suggest that the answer is 'No, they won't block access unless you actually opt out of FON'.

However, if you want to be sure, you could do the same as if you had bought a Fonera router. Just plug your BT Hub into a spare port on your existing router. Turn off the DHCP server on the BT hub so as not to confuse things.

I'm assuming that the BT hub has an ethernet port that will act as an uplink port - I've never seen one so I'm not sure.

 

[chaser]

I swapped to BT but kept my own router, coz it was all set up how I wanted it.

So I don't act as a hotspot. Does this mean BT will block my FON or other hotspot use ?

Hopefully this link will help you
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Just got it off the fon site:thumb:

 

[chaser]

One for Addie

Seems to be up and running now cheers

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[DBK]

Rather than start a new thread I will add here my experience of BT FON, or BT WiFi as they also call it.

I tried registering years ago but without success but I tried again recently and got the message "not on permitted product" which was confusing. After a good half an hour on the phone I was told the problem was my BT email was still with Yahoo and needed to be migrated to BT, which they would do but it could take 7 days to happen.

There was no joy after 10 days, still the same error message when I tried registering so I tried emailing them. The next day I get a detailed email telling me how to do various checks, which I followed and I could then finally register for BT WiFi! The email was from someone in the UK (called Caz) and they asked me to let them know how I got on, except it wasn't possible to reply to their email as it came from a generic or automated BT email server. More time on the phone speaking to someone in warmer climes who I eventually managed to get to send a message to Caz, who had sent the helpful email.

Later in the afternoon, Caz, for it was she, called me to check all was working. Amazingly, she works for BT locally to me in Devon!

So, with grit and determination, a couple of years of your life and an inexhaustible sense of humour and patience, you can successfully register for BT WiFi!

For those still with me the problem was my BT email address was not linked to my BT telephone account.

Don't ask...

PS. If you have ever wondered how you pronounce BT FON it rhymes with scone.

 

[Dorwyn]

One thing I'm unsure about with FON, is that when you connect through to it you are presumably on an unsecure network. What are the ramifications of that? Is using Kaspersky or the like on your laptop sufficient to keep you secure? Are you secure if the website you are looking at has HTTPS (or whatever the acronym is) in the website address, can you use it to safely order or pay for things?

 

[DBK]

One thing I'm unsure about with FON, is that when you connect through to it you are presumably on an unsecure network. What are the ramifications of that? Is using Kaspersky or the like on your laptop sufficient to keep you secure? Are you secure if the website you are looking at has HTTPS (or whatever the acronym is) in the website address, can you use it to safely order or pay for things?

Good question, being of a cautious nature I wouldn't do any internet banking using it but I suspect you are probably safe. I use my mobile phone to do internet banking if away from home.

 

[Lenny HB]

As this thread has resurfaced my experience in France may help someone.

I tried Fon for the first time last year in France using an Alfa R36 router, I could pick up a Fon signal, but no matter what I did I couldn't connect to it, tearing my hair out for a week trying all sorts of different configurations on the router. Then SWMO was looking at the screen and said are these numbers supposed to be the same? Then it clicked the LAN and WAN addresses were in the same range well it never was going to work was it, as usual came down to not checking the basics.

The French Fon routers were dishing out an IP address of 192.168.2.80 with a gateway of 192.168.2.81 and the default LAN IP on the Alfa is 192.168.2.1, a quick change of the LAN address to 1.92.168.1.254 so it was in a different range, bingo connected.

 

[9526]

As this thread has resurfaced my experience in France may help someone.

I tried Fon for the first time last year in France using an Alfa R36 router, I could pick up a Fon signal, but no matter what I did I couldn't connect to it, tearing my hair out for a week trying all sorts of different configurations on the router. Then SWMO was looking at the screen and said are these numbers supposed to be the same? Then it clicked the LAN and WAN addresses were in the same range well it never was going to work was it, as usual came down to not checking the basics.

The French Fon routers were dishing out an IP address of 192.168.2.80 with a gateway of 192.168.2.81 and the default LAN IP on the Alfa is 192.168.2.1, a quick change of the LAN address to 1.92.168.1.254 so it was in a different range, bingo connected.

You sir, are an absolute megastar!!

I've been in France for about a week, able to connect to FON but unable to connect to the Internet.

My mobile router was 192.168.2.1 I changed it to 192.168.1.254 and hey presto, boom, etc etc

I owe you a beer if we ever meet

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