(Update)

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!)
 Fon Wireless Community Ads

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