“Give to receive” is the mantra of a new initiative by Spanish startup Fon to bring “free” Wi-Fi to the residents of San Francisco’s Castro District.
The plan is the same one tried by Fon elsewhere: the company gives people Wi-Fi routers to install in their homes with the understanding that they will use them to share some of their internet connection with other Fon users (so-called “Foneros”). The routers emit two types of signals: one for private usage and the other for secure access by fellow Foneros. Share some of your own internet connection and your neighbors will share back, effectively expanding the geographic area of the internet access you pay for.
The scheme has recruited over 635,000 users in Europe, Asia and America despite the bans many ISPs place on sharing internet connections. Fon is conducting this San Francisco effort with the support of the San Francisco Bay Guardian and will make money off the program after they stop giving the Wi-Fi routers away for free. If you do end up paying for a Fon router, you’ll have the chance to recoup your money (and maybe make a profit) through the proceeds of FON Access pass sales.
Fon joins Meraki in the attempt to bring widespread Wi-Fi to San Francisco after Google and Earthlink failed to do so themselves. Meraki’s strategy differs from Fon’s in many ways, particularly in its ad-based monetization strategy.
Grate strategy, sooner or later initiatives like this will catch on
give to receive? in the castro? odd naming choice, eh?
The trouble with sharing your Internet connection here in the states, is the darn RIAA and Co.
Anyone out there can start sharing Music and Movies and what not using Your Wi-Fi router, so it’s registering from your IP. Go prove later that it wasn’t you…
Or are those Fon routers “super army grade” secure for just Fon use?
Of course the rest of the world doesn’t “Benefit” from RIAA’s presence like “we do”, so I can see how this great idea is catching on there.
great idea!
Before Fon continues expanding even more I really think they need to improve their hard/software and operations. They must be bleeding cash like crazy. My original Fonera (wireless-only router) worked fine however when I moved and needed an ethernet-out port on my router I upgraded to their Fonera+. I’ve had nothing but problems since then. After emailing with them for at leat 2 weeks they finally had me run a diagnostic tool that confirmed that my Fonera+ had a bug and they would send me a free replacement. Of course they sent me the wrong one and then had to send another Fonera+. This new Fonera+ still has frequent problems and the wireless connection is pretty much worthless unless you restart the router everyday. So they’ve sent me 4 routers that I’ve only paid about $40 total for and despite living in/near large apartment buildings in Washington, DC, I’ve only earned ~$11. I really don’t see how they are ever going to recoup their investment on their discounted routers let alone their free ones. I must admit that their Fonera has been rock stable but their Fonera+ is just junk right now.
On top of all of this their pricing is ridiculous. $3 per day but with no guarantees of quality of service. At least when I buy wifi from a commercial service I can expect some minimum service quality. But with Fon you have no clue if the Fon router owner is going to turn off their router, restart it, start their own torrent session that kills Fon’s bandwidth, etc. They should charge by the MB. That way it doesn’t matter if a certain Fon spot is slow or drops, etc you only have to pay for what you use. I think they will get a lot more paying customers this way.
I bet it gets a pretty good response in the People’s Republic of San Francisco…
Adi – it would seem to be a huge benefit of the Fon plan that it would help stymie the RIAA by obfuscating the source/identity of file sharers. It should be their marketing plan.
Chris, great post! Thanks.
I’ve been thinking about signing up too. But, I’m going to hold off for a bit longer based on your post. I think you are correct that the logistics part of their business could really hurt FON.
I don’t understand why FON is trying to build a business around “sharing” Internet connections.
Almost all major ISPs won’t allow this http://www.wlan...sharing-policy/
How is this different or better than Meraki Networks and their initiative in the Mission district?
@Adi: Believe me, you’re not alone. For instance, as for Germany the majority of our so called representatives obviously considers every citizen to be a criminal, which is why the parliament has passed a law that demands all public network connections to be stored for at least half a year for use by the police and intelligence agencies, which effectively kills otherwise great concepts like this one, because an operator would have to live in constant fear of a house search (including the confiscation of his / her hardware).
Adi, on the contrary, Fon provides a solid alibi for anyone downloading anything.
this is good…props to FON!
john
diamondrings411.com
@joeson Well, many ISPs don’t allow it, but others realise that Fon doesn’t compete with them. This explains why Neuf-Cegetel (3rd ISP in France) is actually integrating Fon functionality into their triple-play boxes. BT in Britain is doing the exact same thing. It brings added value to their offerings, at little or no extra cost.
My father tell me to go to TechCrunch and it did has a lot of great news. My website is http://www.artsberry.com.
FON! are they still around. They have no business model, just vapor wear. Their US operation keeps failing.
Sequoia/Google instead of promoting FON, now are backing FON’s competitor!
The fundamental difference between Fon and Meraki is that the latter uses similar hardware, but with way better firmware (which supports meshing out of the box), and a fantastic backend management system. Fon’s management pages are confusing, slow, and provide almost no useful information.
Deploying a Meraki network is as easy as buying the boxes, connecting a few to broadband, and letting the rest mesh themselves in. Using the backend management system, you can then manage the whole network in a centralized way. Meraki also supports setting your own price for access (including free!), customize your landing page, even enable WEP encryption for private networks…
Fon basically took a standard open source firmware, customized it with zero in-house engineering skills onto a crappy hardware platform, set an arbitrary price for reselling its users bandwith without them having a chance of opting out of this reselling, and hyped the whole thing as a socialist revolution around WiFi.
Oh, and the “recruited over 635,000 users in Europe, Asia and America”? That is what it means – users, not WiFi hotspots. They have sold or given away maybe 200.000, of which less than 50% are online. Just check out Fon’s own maps, or the statistic s here
I have been a FON user since a year and the hardware is awful (even with the Fontena), I haven’t made a cent even though my apartment is right in front of a starbucks in the downtown area of Munich (I’ve had tons of users, but all of them are already Foneros, therefore I earn nothing!), I won’t use FON anymore because according to German law you are responsible for your WAN, no matters who uses it, and I have yet to find a working hotspot in a interesting area.
It is a good idea, but the hardware is cheap, the configuration options are non existent (you can set the maximum download speed.. but not the upload one! I’ve had people on my spot that turn on Bittorrent and eat all my uploading bandwidth and I can do anything against it..) and it seems to be more Vaporware than anything.
oh mike puchol, worlds very famous anti-fonero explains us the same old soup, eah day , because his w..i…r is a no-go… we know!
uploading bandwith s fixed to downloading one, so this statement is also pure crappy…
lets hope, that SMS-tickets will be available soon in US
Uhm…I think in your obviously deluded attitude you have me confused with someone else. There are tons of critics, just read the comments here, or the Fon forums. What stake have -you- in Fon to be so aggressive against those who are criticizing it, and not just me? Why don’t you show who you really are? Ah, no, it’s more comfortable to attack from behind a false identity…
It does surprise me that FON is still around. Whilst a great idea two years ago FON has failed to execute especially in the US, particularly in the face of better technology and grass root growth from Meraki, and now really only serves as a media circus for their CEO. Shame they managed to squander this opportunity and investments from Google, eBay and Index ventures…
WiFi Communityyyyy. yessssss.
http://simongeo...googlepages.com
Grate strategy
One thing about FON that you don’t learn right away is that they are generous with the signal you provide by allowing anyone who wants it, 15 minutes of free access every 24 hour period. For that I am paid a generous 7 CENTS! I have no choice whether or not to provide this free access. When my account finally reaches the $30 mark, they take whatever taxes and costs out of my share and then they send the difference to my PayPal account. Yes, I know that they also split the daily access fee with me when someone buys a day-pass. Again, however, the taxes and costs come out of my share and sometime in 2068, when I hit the magic $30 mark, they send it to my account. With FON, you are paying to make money for someone else.
(continued…) If you live in a residential neighborhood you would do well to just forget about it. FON pretends that every modem deployed is online, increasing your chances of free WiFi when you travel. No. 635,000 members is not an assurance of 635,000 active access points that will be available for you for free. Save the money you would spend on this router and just purchase access on available commercial hotspots when you travel. You’ll be a lot happier and safer since FON devices are easily hacked.