fontastic.org - FON and free WiFi blog

BT and FON launch World’s largest Wi-Fi network October 4, 2007

BT and FON have finally put their efforts together and offer joined WiFi services. All 3 million BT broadband customers will be invited and joining members will be able to use all 190,000 FON hotspots around the globe as well as all new BT FON hotspots. Find out more about it on their new website.

It is probably the biggest deal so far for FON having convinced Time Warner Cable to team up with them and allow broadband subscribers to share their bandwidth with passer-bys via the FON network. This adds another 6.6 million potential Foneros to the movement. Martin Varsavsky wrote it took them some time to convince them but finally they bought in to the concept of that there are quite a few "I am rarely at home still I pay for broadband cause I use it for free when I travel" (quote) - users who would go with Time Warner broadband because they allow to be a Fonero. If both Fon and TWC would also jointly market their broadband products whereby Time Warner bundles routers with La Foneros, that might be a real added value and convincing argument for new customers.

French ISP Free opens all 300,000 WiFi hot spots of their users to be used by any subscriber to Free. If you have signed up with Free you can from now on roam anywhere you find a Free hotspot and make free VoIP phone calls (roaming is restricted to 64kbps). Frees set top boxes will have this feature turned on by default, all other users need to switch this on to be effective.

Is this a threat for FON? Well, I guess yes and no. In France this means some competition, no doubt. But it will also help FON. First of all, the whole free WiFi idea (or movement if you will) gets more momentum. Plus, even Free users can only roam within France whereas Foneros roam worldwide. Once you get used to it in France you might want to join FON as well to be able of taking advantage of free WiFi everywhere.

via GigaOm, Engadget

The Wi-Fi-FreeSpot™ Directory website is an excellent source for free WiFi hot spots around the world. They have special sections for US and international airports, hotels, stores and parks. Beside a detailed listing for the US you also find spots in Europe and Asia.

With Fondoo.net, launched in July this year the UK has got the first FON-friendly ISP (according to Wikipedia) that explicitly allows sharing of bandwidth either as a Bill or Linus. I spoke with Alan Bell today, the founder of Fondoo.net and he said they have had meetings with FON UK and Germany and "they were pretty positive about it all round". Fondoo.net is privately owned and financed. According to Alan Bell, Fondoo is available everywhere that ADSL is available (ADSL is running on British Telecom lines in the UK). The service starts at £17.99 for a 512k residential package including unlimited download capacity. Business packages are also available.

Free WiFi for Singapore, almost free computers October 13, 2006

Singapore announced they will offer more free WiFi throughout the island. They will increase the number of hot spots from 900 to 5,000. The free WiFi will offer 512 kb per second and will be free for at least 2 years. The government also announced to subsidize 10,000 computers for needy students (household income less then $125). Qualifying students can purchase a computer for $179.

[via Engadget, MSNBC]

Today, Martin Varsavsky spoke at ETRE 06 (European Technology Roundtable Exhibition) in Barcelona. Red Herring interviewed him yesterday. Some interesting facts were unveiled:

FON is currently in negotiations with US cable companies to team up with them to solve the "last few feet" problem, but Martin didn't really want to go into detail (see the video here)
The number of hot spots needed to make some impact was estimated to be 500,000, a real impact at 1 million (which are planned to be reached by 2008)
FONs cash reserve will last another 2 and a half years (spring 2008) by which point Martin assumes to have gained positive cash flow
Advertisement is not planned to be rolled out and the marketing strategy will continue to be build upon word of mouth only
According to FONs own numbers, the current user base accounts for 95,000 foneros and 20,000 registered routers (hot spots)

He further stressed the point to see ISPs not to be competitors but rather thinks 3G providers would fall under this category.

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AOL is FON friendly - at least in Germany May 5, 2006

According to SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG (one of the major newspapers in Germany), AOL has no intend to hinder Foneros from sharing their bandwidth in Germany. „Our customers may share their accounts with other users at their will“, says AOL-spokesperson Tobias Riepe.

Source: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/,cm2/computer/artikel/79/75004/ via fonblog.de

Cost of Connection: Internet cafés worldwide vs. FON

In it's recent issue, Wired magazine presents an interesting comparison of internet café prices worldwide. It's broken down by hourly prices and in % of GDP per capita per day. Now, FON will shortly offer 24h access for just $2 which is only 8.3 c per hour. This means, in New York City you could stay connected for one fourth of the average cost of an internet café in Lima. Here is a short overview:

High: New York City ($12.80/ 11.2%)
Low: Lima, La Paz ($0.38/ 2.3% - 5.1%)
European Cities: Paris ($4.86), London ($1.78), Prague ($3.31)
East Asia: Shanghai ($0.62), Tokyo ($3.41)
Highest GDP: Kinshasa, D.R. of the Congo ($1.59/ 68.4%)
Lowest GDP: Bangkok ($0.39/ 1.7%)
FON (worldwide): ($0.08)

(Source: "The Cost of Staying Connected", Wired Magazine, May issue, p. 53)

EarthLink to change FON policy? April 6, 2006

After today's official announcement of Google & EarthLink having been selected by the City of San Francisco to build up a municipal (free) WiFi network, the question remains open whether or not EarthLink's policy towards WiFi sharing changes. As reported yesterday (see below), EarthLink's terms and conditions leave end-users in limbo. While EarthLink doesn't explicitly disallow sharing we feel it would be helpful to get their official position.
Meanwhile Engadget reports that users in San Francisco will be able to use a 300 kbps WiFi connection free of charge (ad-financed) or 1 mbps without ads. Leaves not much room for Aliens or Bills at the current pricing model as the residential user probably wouldn't want to spend $60 per month and visitors might just opt for the free model (if this is possible). But I bet Martin Varsavsky has some sort of solution for this dilemma as well as it is in Google's best interest to support FON.

Wireless friendly ISPs - wrap up ! April 5, 2006

One of the most important success factors of FON is obviously whether or not FON is able to bring ISPs on board to allow sharing enduser's WiFi. Sure, there might be some money in for them at some point. But what about here and now? We have done some investigation and found two great websites that tell you all about it: EFF's Wireless-Friendly ISPSs and ISP Wireless Policies. For a brief overview check the following table:

ISP	Where?	Sharing allowed?
AceDSL	New York
bway.net	New York
Cablevision - Optimum Online	New York
AT&T Broadband	nationwide
Earthlink	nationwide
Speakeasy	nationwide
Verizon DSL	nationwide
Time Warner Cable	nationwide