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I was having major trouble with my internet connection, earlier today, and, when the solution became apparent, I noticed something terribly worrying. The problem was that my notebook was not actually connected to my own WiFi network!

It was, in fact, connected to a public WiFi network in my home area named Telekom_FON - a network that I had never heard of. This network connection was marred with that familiar yellow icon that means no Internet access and that was why my Git push was failing but, honestly, I don't care about my Git push - I care a lot that my laptop had connected to a random network!

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According to that Windows 10 settings screen, Microsoft think it's quite OK for my laptop to be doing this because the rogue network was not some unknown - it was "Added by [my] network provider."

There's no way I think this is OK and so I immediately disconnected and started trying to track down the cause of this. The first thing that came to mind was the much ridiculed "WiFi Sense" feature of Windows 10...

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But it was firmly off. I knew this before I even looked, because I knew I had firmly turned it off. Something called Hotspot 2.0 was also off - I don't recognise the name so I guess it must be something new since the Anniversary Update.

The only thing turned on was "Paid WiFi Services". Could that be it? If so, why is it on? I know I turned it off in the past - it isn't new to me and I haven't re-installed the OS on this home-laptop since late-2015!

The crux of the matter is this: I need to know why this happened in order to prevent it from ever happening again - on my home-laptop, on my dev-box at work or on any of the machines under my professional care.

There is absolutely no way it is OK for a PC to automatically connect to any old network and there are certainly no 'network providers' in existence who I trust enough to chose safe networks on my behalf.

If this is related to that "Paid WiFi Services" toggle, I want to know why it re-enabled itself. If not, please help me to find out what it is related to!

(Addendum: A quick search showed why the network was news to me: Apparently, the roll-out of "Telekom FON" (whatever that is) is actually new to Germany, the country in which this problem manifested itself: https://fon.com/telekom-fon-wifi-network-deployed-in-germany/)

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  • Sounds like your network provider is hosting another wi-fi network on your access point, and doing so on other customers too. I think the idea is that your connection can follow you as long as you're in range of a customer that they've rolled the network out to. I presume it has some authenticate built in so they know which customer is using it. Personally, I wouldn't want to use something like that unless I specifically chose to do so, having it forced on you is a bit dodgy. Have you tried turning off the Paid WiFi option? Did it make any difference?
    – Dave Lucre
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 21:43
  • Naturally, I turned it off immediately. I don't know whether it will make a difference, though - I guess time will tell - but "hope and pray" security is not security at all.
    – Xharlie
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 22:09
  • I employed the time-honoured method of "pulling the plug" on my FritzBox and the offending Telekom_FON network remained present on the airwaves - at least according to inSSIDer and Windows - so I conclude that my ISP are not running naughty networks on my router. This delivery must have come from another channel - I'm sure a Windows one. @DaveLucre
    – Xharlie
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 22:22
  • What's your proximity to your neighbours? If everyone with that ISP in your area has the network configured on their ISP issued routers, then pulling your plug won't kill the network on the air.
    – Dave Lucre
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 22:28
  • "If so, why is it on?" When you created your user account you used the express feature instead of individually setting each option manually
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 23:08

1 Answer 1

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I have just annihilated this same fault on my system, how rude of "my network provider", especially when they aren't my network provider.

This is part of a Telstra pseudo wifi network rollout. Everyone that is on the 'Fon' plan has their router set to broadcast a Fon derivative SSID allowing others to connect, similar to sense.

Switching the paid services off fixed it for me.

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