View source for Fon

'''Fon = worldwide WiFi initiative'''


URL = http://en.fon.com/


=Description=


"The Madrid-based startup Fon, in which Skype is an investor, turns the [[Freemium Business Model]] idea on its head – and takes Web 2.0 a step further – by letting users make money by doing without features. Fon has a mad scheme to cover the earth with inexpensive, in some cases free, Wi-Fi. It even has its own crazy lexicon. People who have bought a Fon wireless router (or installed free Fon software on their own router) are Foneros; those who haven’t are dismissed as Aliens. Some Foneros choose to share their connections with one another in return for free Net access at any Fon hot spot; they’re called Linuses (after Linus Torvalds). Others, known as Bills (as in Gates), choose to pay for access at Fon hot spots. In return, they get a cut of the revenue when an Alien pays to log on through their router.

In the old days, building an international telecom infrastructure and growing its market share required a colossal pool of capital. Today, Foneros do both of those jobs themselves. Sure, the company has $22 million to burn, which is nothing to sneeze at. But it also has an advisory board full of A-list bloggers like Dan Gillmor and David Weinberger, a powerful engine propelling the network to critical mass."
(Bruce Sterling at http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/posts.html?pg=7)


=Status Report=

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/25/technology/25web.html? New York Times], May 2008:

"At the moment, there are just 830,000 registered Foneros around the world, and only 340,000 active Wi-Fi hotspots run FON software. Because it’s built upon the concept of sharing Wi-Fi access, FON works well only if there are Foneros everywhere.

And as he struggles to expand the FON network, Mr. Varsavsky faces particular hurdles now that the Internet’s commercial side has reached a crossroads. Born a few decades ago as an anarchic, digital version of a barn-raising, the wireless Internet is now a battleground between two giant technology consortiums seeking to rein in the Web’s chaotic openness in favor of creating uniform, global access built upon wireless data networks.

The two camps, known as WiMax and L.T.E., for “long-term evolution,” are both top-down, highly structured approaches that will cost billions of dollars to build and may close a door on some of the architectural openness that led to the rapid growth of the Internet. 

But their potential advantage is that closed standards can encourage the kind of growth that offers more access to mainstream consumers and business users, as occurred when Microsoft imposed a measure of conformity on software development. 

For his part, Mr. Varsavsky hopes that FON can offer a middle ground — deploying the original, bottom-up strengths of the early Internet movement and at the same time wedding them to a more formal, corporate approach to expansion. 

Although FON faces huge obstacles in realizing those ambitions, the company also has a growing number of devotees."



=More Information=

The [[Open Fon Platform]]


[[Category:Companies]]

[[Category:Standards]]

[[Category:Technology]]