Fon for everyone

Wi-Fi just got a whole lot more interesting with a new scheme which allows you to use a stranger's home hub.

It was launched by BT last night at the Tate Modern with the help of Peaches Geldof.

BT have teamed up with Spanish phone company FON  to create a new Wi-Fi network based on members sharing their own home wireless hubs.

If you are a total broadband user, you will have the option to link up your home hub to a public network and if you tick that particular box it will also allow you to log into broadband via anyone else's hub who has also opted to share.

It has amazing potential. Just imagine, if everyone in one town, say Nottingham, all opted to share their BT home hub, you would have free Wi-Fi in the whole of that city. It would mean you could make free calls via a Wi-Fi mobile phone handset, or you  could access the net on a Wi-Fi laptop anywhere in that city.

And BT say the system is totally secure because in effect they are splitting the access of every member to a personal and public sector on every home hub.

Only drawback might be, if you are the only one sharing in your street, you might find a load of FON members  camped outside your house using your Wi-Fi.

Peaches wasn't exactly keen to share as she spun her tunes last night. "I don't do requests," she said. Apart from big corporate gigs on a school night, maybe.

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