Spanish company, Fon, wants to let wireless internet users share their connection

October 21st, 2005 · 8 Comments

Fon, wireless community service

As I was looking at how network providers regulate the sharing of the Internet access they provide to their subscribers, I came across the initiative from Fon.
Fon is planning on being first a Spanish Internet Service Provider (ISP) that will make it possible for subscribers to share ADSL service through wireless connection (WiFi).

Principle

Basically, suscribers could choose between 2 models:

Resellers: in this case, subscribers could resell up to 50% of their connection capacity. Fon will manage the access to other suscribers and give the user a cut of the fees it gets from that particular wireless access point. (Identified in the business model as Bill for Bill Gates I guess!)
Community members: subscribers will then give up up to 50% of their connection capacity for free to others members of the service. In exchange, they will be able to roam on any of the other access points made accessible by other Fon members. (Identified in the business model as Linus for Linus Torvalds I guess!)

Requirements and availablilty

As of now, the service will require suscribers to own a compatible router, the Linksys WRT54G Wireless-G Router
The service is not operational yet. It is supposed to open around Nov 15th of this year but the Fon community sign-up page is already available.

More details are available on the Martin Varsavsky’s blog

See also this other way of sharing your connection:
Ubicomp 2005 video: Yellow chairs

Tags: Information Systems · Mobile Computing · Privacy · Research · Wireless

8 responses so far ↓

1 Boing Boing // Oct 22, 2005 at 12:29 am

Spanish ISP wants its customers to share WiFi

Riad sez, Fon, a new Spanish company, is offering to build a service based on P2P principles for people to be able to access the Internet through other people connection using wireless networking. The system is based on 2 categories of users; — Bill w…
2 Blog del Robert Vall Mas [EliziR] // Oct 22, 2005 at 1:21 am

Altre intent per a unificar xarxes WiFi

FON, ?s un software que el qu? intenta fer ?s que la gent, al teni’l i compartint la seva xarxa amb una antre antena, es crei una xarxa on la gent (que tamb? tingui aquest software) es pugui connectar lliurement dins d’aquesta.

Resulta una mica cu…
3 Atalaya: desde la tela de araña // Oct 22, 2005 at 9:55 am

BoingBoing y FON

BoingBoing menciona hoy a FON: un proveedor de servicio internet quiere que sus clientes compartan el WiFi; parece que no se han enterado muy bien, porque FON no es un ISP. Y aunque se trata de compartir, no veo yo que se trate de basarse en principios
4 Venera7.com » Blog Archive » Compartir WiFi // Oct 22, 2005 at 1:45 pm

[…] A través de BoingBoing he llegado a leer un post en el que una “empresa” española llamada Fon pretende crear una red wireless universal, en la que sus miembros puedan compartir su conexión a internet. […]
5 Johnathan // Oct 22, 2005 at 11:59 pm

I have always wondered why US broadband providers don’t do this. Imagine the Wi-Fi network that SBC, or Verizon, or even Qwest could have if they would implement either of these options. I don’t have a need, nor the equipment for Wi-Fi yet, but when I do, I’d gladly participate in a sharing option like the “Linus” above.

I guess they will wake up after the rest of the world shows the way.
6 ziga-zaga » Blog Archive » Fon: wifi compartit // Oct 23, 2005 at 3:48 am

[…] No en sabia encara, ho he vist a Invisible yet necessari. […]
7 Invisible Yet Necessary » Fon WiFi gets support from Google and Skype to build a (sort of) wireless freenet // Feb 6, 2006 at 1:42 pm

[…] As I am doing research on the interaction design issues with wireless networking, I have been particularly interested in seeing how the story with Fon will evolve. I first reported on Fon in October before they launched and I have seen that the movement was gaining some momentum even before being officially launched. but then, I figured out that the solution they were offering was not that novel — Robert Cringely reports on a micro franchisee business model that looks pretty similar — . Experts in the field of wireless and broadband were questioning it too (see Om Malik, Glenn Fleishman). […]
8 Invisible Yet Necessary » Wi-Fi: Sharing, Piggybacking and the legal implications // Mar 22, 2006 at 2:36 pm

[…] Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on Wi-Fi access sharing. This is not a new topic but it has probably found a new life with FON building a business model around people sharing their Wi-Fi access and FON getting major funding from both Skype and Google. I probably have to thank Martin Varsavsky for all the press and blog coverage it is generating and the material I can use in my research. […]

Invisible Yet Necessary

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