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FON at ETRE and in Red Herring October 11, 2006

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)