BT have dished out a nice little gift to its Total Broadband subscribers (and probably encouraged some more people to join.) Subscribers can now download an application for both iPhone and Android handsets that will automatically connect them to BT FON Wi-Fi hotspots when they come into range thus freeing them from the pain of having to manually search and connect.

Those who use BT broadband as their home internet service can use the app to get free unlimited Wi-Fi from FON and Openzone hotspots giving them a faster, more reliable wireless internet service.

Of course it’s no 3G/EDGE and if you’re in the middle of nowhere, free, unlimited, automatic Wi-Fi is about as much use as a chocolate fireguard.

But BT does have over 1.6million FON and Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots across the world, (the majority of them being in coffee shops, bars and restaurants) so if you live in the city or drink a lot of coffee you may get a lot of use out of this app (if you’re a BT customer of course.)

Both the iPhone and Android apps offer a Wi-Fi hotspot tracker, which can unfortunately guide users to password protected connections which are a tad useless.

Regardless of its faults though it seems like a good idea and to celebrate the launch, BT is giving 50p to BBC Children in Need for each free BT FON application downloaded, until they reach a target of £10,000. So even if you’ll never use it, download it and feel good about yourself for the day. Now.

Source: T3