Today

BT is looking to transform Britain's wireless broadband credentials with the launch of a wi-fi sharing community.

The sharing service, dubbed Fon, has been billed by BT as the "world's largest wi-fi community".

BT's three million broadband customers will be invited to join the global community of people sharing their broadband.

At launch, new members will be part of an existing community of 500,000 members and will have access to more than 190,000 Fon hotspots worldwide.

Gavin Patterson, BT: "Today we are launching a people's network of wi-fi, which could one day cover every street in Britain."

Anyone joining in will be able to use those Fon hotspots across the world and all the new BT Fon hotspots free of charge.

"The revolutionary idea for a massive Wi-Fi community, built by individual people and not a large corporate enterprise, marks BT's boldest step yet in building extensive broadband coverage outside of the home or office," BT said in a statement.

Every person who agrees to share a "small portion" of their home broadband connection, by opening up a "separate, secure channel on their wireless router", will be able to share the connection of any other member.

Gavin Patterson, BT Group's managing director, said "This is the start of something very exciting for BT. Today we are launching a people's network of wi-fi, which could one day cover every street in Britain.

"We are giving our millions of broadband customers a choice and an opportunity. If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of Fon and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny.

"We have built a public wi-fi network and 12 wireless cities already, but today we are saying to customers, let's build a Wi-Fi community together, which covers everywhere and serves everyone."