BT Home Hubs are unlike most other wireless routers because they have multiple personalities rather than just one. This can be an advantage if you’re a BT customer and need Internet access while you’re out and about. You simply need to find a building showing a ‘BTWi-Fi’ hotspot, and hook onto it using your BT ID and password. As the BT system allows you to use other people’s Internet connections, it’s only fair other BT customers can use yours in the same way. However, BT will always give priority to the bill payer over strangers using the bill payer’s connection.
With the BT system, customers sometimes unintentionally hook onto their own hubs using the ‘BTWi-Fi’ identity, rather than the main identity, which is usually something like ‘BTHub6-X1Y2’. This can be very confusing, but the diagnosis and treatment are both simple. If your current Internet connection doesn’t work as expected, check if you’ve connected to ‘BTWi-Fi’ by accident. If you have, simply disconnect from the ‘stranger’ hotspot, and quite often the main identity will automatically connect instead, after which you’ll once again be able to use the Internet.