A European Informational Website
learn more
FON Wireless Ltd. is a company of British law, registered and based in Madrid, Spain. Led by Martin Varsavsky, FON was first presented at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference by Ejovi Nuwere, the founding CEO of FON USA. The conference was held from January 24-26, 2006 in the United States.
On February 6, 2006 FON received a 21.70 million dollar grant from Google, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Skype Technologies SA, who continue to support the company. At present, the Fon software remains in a Beta phase.
Though the company is viewed as a WiFi community, and does subsidize the customized routers sold in its online store, it is a for profit company. Fon makes money by charging a usage fee to "Aliens" for day passes which can be used to connect to the internet through a Fon access point. "Bills" are also charged a reduced usage fee when they connect to the internet through another user's router.
Martin Varsavsky aims to "build a global standard for sharing WiFi"[1]. Though critics believe the "Fon movement" will die with emerging technology, Varsavsky believes his company is not limited to just one technology and plans to expand the Fon service into emerging technologies like WiMAX.[2] According to Varsavsky, WiMax has the potential to greatly increase Fon's popularity by increasing signal range and coverage.
Anyone can join the Fon community, but only broadband internet subscribers can take advantage of the Fon network by purchasing a La Fonera (roughly meaning in Spanish, "the Fon-ator"), a customized router from the [https://shop.fon.com Fon Shop], and sharing their connection through it.
There are three types of Fon community members, also known as Foneros:
Skype, a VoIP company, has partnered with Fon to provide a $160 package deal that includes a WiFi phone capable of connecting to the Fon network and a La Fonera Router[3]. Alone, La Fonera routers currently cost approximately $40.00. On special events or certain markets, Fon offers the router for free. The "Fonero Gives Fonero" program started in December of 2006, Allowed current FON users to send invitations to friends, allowing them to receive a free FON router, with shipping charges paid.
Many Alternative firmwares have emerged for the la fonera. Some such as; DD-WRT, and OPEN-WRT remove the public Service set identifier fon_ap and are an entire new firmware. Others such as FREEWLAN ,PONTE, and FONERIX leave the public Service set identifier fon_ap intact as well as offer additional features such as client bridge mode, Aircrack-ng, Kismet (program) and support for Package management system programs to be installed on the JFFS2 file system.
The following are commonly cited criticisms of FON:
<References/>