Yes, I know. My objection is that our politicos haven't thought it through or done any research.

Most of these "free" hotspots are in cafes, bars, restaurants and hotels.........so they are only "free to paying customers" which is a whole different ballgame? You have to ask for the access code of the day, which means you have to buy something.

Also, because they are paying for the service, the owners generally go for the cheapest option, which is the slowest. If you get two or three people on it then they are probably only getting 1Mbps.

I have ADSL (common in UK sticksville) which gives me around 8Mbps but only 448Kbps upstream, which makes torrents rather slow if you have to balance your traffic.

My main argument is that the home hubs/routers that our ISPs provide have no security other than to protect its own settings. Anything within range can connect to the router because there is no user ID or password.

OK you can stop it broadcasting an SSID, but how many members of the general public would even know it existed let alone how to do it.

That suggests to me that there are millions of free wireless connections available in the UK which can be accessed from the comfort of your own home (depending on where you live).

This is totally useless to rightsholders, as they have no idea who was actually using a connection to download their material.