wraggster
August 25th, 2015, 20:26
An anonymous reader writes with a story that Virgin Media "announced this month its plans to roll out a free public WiFi network (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/internet/8677182/Virgin-Media-to-take-a-punt-on-free-London-WiFi-network.html) this autumn, using subscribers' personal routers (https://thestack.com/cloud/2015/08/25/virgin-media-to-allow-passers-by-to-freely-access-your-wifi/) and existing infrastructure to distribute the service across UK cities." And while regular customers' routers are to be the basis of the new network, the publicly viewable overlay would operate over "a completely separate connection," and the company claims subscribers' performance will not be hindered. Why, then, would customers bother to pay? For one thing, because the free version is slow: 0.5Mbps, vs. 10Mbps for Virgin's customers.
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/08/25/1544213/virgin-media-to-base-a-public-wi-fi-net-on-paying-customers-routers
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/15/08/25/1544213/virgin-media-to-base-a-public-wi-fi-net-on-paying-customers-routers