My Fon Blog

Anyone order 400,000 foneras?

2010-02-13T20:30:00.000-05:00

Fon got an order for 400,000 Fonera WiFi routers in January

"While we still can’t disclose from who Fon got an order for 400K Foneras I can say that it is a mobile operator. Mobile operators are realizing that Fon is their amigo. That for them it’s great when customers who paid their monthly 3G fees offload their traffic on to a WiFi network. More to follow."

LINK

Fon launches the PeekFon

2010-02-11T20:24:00.002-05:00

reserve yours now: http://www.fon.com/en/promos/peek

The PeekFon will be 99 euros to buy, a reasonable price especially considering that the price includes both the gadget and 6 months of all you can eat email service anywhere in Europe. No roaming charges. No contract.

After that we will charge euro 12.90 per month for the service but as opposed to other email machines out there, there is no cancellation penalty of any kind if the user does not want to continue with the service.

This is a complementary service to Fon WiFi but it is not a WiFi product. It is a GPRS product. The idea is that with Fon you share a little wifi at home and roam for free but the PeekFon addresses those moments in which you can’t find WiFi in spite of Fon´s over 800,000 hotspots now available in Europe. With the PeekFon you get the most important piece of messaging, your email, anytime.

Browsing, Twitter, and other functionalities will be added within months but for now buyers have to think of the PeekFon as an email machine with a full keyboard.

Why is Fon launching the PeekFon?

Because in Europe we pay huge roaming charges when we leave our own countries. As a German you can come to France and easily pay in a day what the Peek will cost in a month.

Because many people still prefer a phone that looks like a phone for phone calls and sms and an email machine for email and don’t mind carrying two devices that do their jobs well.

Because even if you never leave your country Blackberry services, iPhone and Android services in Europe cost around 50 euros a month and have minimum 2 year stays and include no talking minutes. So in Europe even if you stay at home you spend 1200 euros to get email and if you travel around Europe you spend double that on the average. This would compare with 312 euros with PeekFon vs 2400 euros if you roam and 1200 euros if you don’t. So there are enormous savings for getting email.

Having said all this Fon recognizes that “apples to apples” a Blackberry, an iPhone, an Android is a better product than a Peek and if you have the extra money to sign 1200 euros contracts and spend a few thousand more for roaming the Peek can’t compete with the complete iPhone, Blackberry, Android experience. But as a pure and simple email machine the Peek can and its price is just reasonable.

We also recommend Americans and Asians and other non Europeans coming to Europe to get a PeekFon as roaming charges by US operators are a killer over here so much so that the iPhone for example comes with a feature to disable roaming.

The PeekFon will be available at Fon.com December 15th. It will be available for shipping to all European countries for which shipping is now provided for the Fonera. If we see demand from USA and Asia we will also have it available at our US and Asian shops to be activated when landing anywhere in Europe.

GPRS service for the PeekFon will be provided by the new Pan European MVNO for gadgets Spotnik. Fon will be Spotnik’s first customer.

Thank you Wired for your “Good Enough” article. It helps me explain why in the era of “my smartphone is smarter than yours” we are launching the PeekFON – unarguably the simplest smartphone around and no rival in terms of apps to the iPhone, Android or Blackberry. The PeekFON is about simplicity. A PeekFon is “good enough”. The PeekFON does one thing very well, email with a full keyboard. And email is what most people need at work. So the PeekFON is a working tool. It is geared towards companies who want to give employees connectivity on the road. The way I see it, if an iPhone is Facebook, a PeekFON aims to be Twitter. Simple, to the point, with limitations, but “good enough”. 23 euros for the device, no roaming anywhere in the EU, no contracts, and a flat 12,90 per month with the first half year prepaid. So you pay 99 euros for the device and 6 months of prepaid service when you order. After that, you only pay for the months you use it. If you want to reserve one click here.

WiFi Gadgets: Cradlepoint CTR-350 Black Cellular Travel Router

2009-11-10T12:00:00.000-05:00

EASY TO USE

The CTR350 Mobile Broadband Travel Router is a full-featured wireless 802.11b/g router developed to be a plug ‘n’ play solution. Simply connect an activated USB modem, plug in the CTR350 and turn the unit on. Within seconds you will have a secure WiFi network for up to 16 WiFi enabled devices.

PORTABLE AND POWERFUL

About the size of a deck of cards (the smallest router in its class), the CTR350 can go with you anywhere. Enjoy the convenience of taking WiFi with you - never search for a hotspot, pay high daily access fees, or risk a non-secure connection again.

SECURE AND RELIABLE

This high-performance router platform, powered by WiPipe™ technology, supports multiple and concurrent VPN pass-through sessions, plus encryption modes including 64/128-bit WEP, WPA and WPA2. Additionally, built-in auto-failover keeps everyone online switching from wired to wireless broadband access in the event of a wired ISP failure.

MSRP $99.99
This product requires a 3rd party data modem and active data plan for full functionality.

http://www.cradlepoint.com

Discounted Fonera 2.0n

2009-11-04T20:39:00.002-05:00

I just got a discount promo code for a fonera 2.0n in my email. Fonero's check your email, I'm going to order one.

Borders Signs Agreement with Verizon to Offer Free Wi-Fi

2009-10-29T20:20:00.001-04:00

should have seen this coming since Barnes and Noble starting offering it.

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Borders Group (NYSE: BGP) today announced that it has signed an agreement with Verizon to provide free Wi-Fi service in virtually all of its more than 500 Borders stores nationwide. Borders and Verizon are well underway in the process of equipping stores to offer free Wi-Fi, with service expected to be available by mid-October.

"Re-engaging with customers as a serious bookseller is one of our strategic priorities," said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. "By offering free Wi-Fi, we are extending the open atmosphere of exploration that is at the core of every great bookstore experience and furthering the sense of community we have always fostered at Borders."

Verizon's platform will allow Borders to create a splash page that customers first experience when they log on to the free Wi-Fi service, giving Borders the opportunity to feature compelling content such as news of hot titles, special discounts and the opportunity to join Borders Rewards(®), the retailer's free customer loyalty program that has 34 million members. Among other benefits, Borders Rewards members earn $5 in "Borders Bucks" for every $150 of annual qualifying purchases made both in store and at Borders.com.

This agreement builds on an existing relationship between Borders and Verizon that encompasses a number of advanced communications and IT services, including wide area networking and voice-over-IP services, Internet connectivity and e-commerce operations support.
Borders.com

WiFi Gadgets: Verizon Mifi

2009-09-25T21:29:00.000-04:00

Cool gadget out there (a replacement for the Fonera 2.0 and a 3G card)

"The Mifi is a tiny, battery powered EVDO modem which sits in your pocket and turns the incoming 3G radio waves into a small Wi-Fi network, enabling you to hook up your laptop, iPod Touch or anything else with a Wi-Fi radio. This last is pretty exciting on its own as it effectively turns an iPod Touch into an iPhone without a phone.

The difference with the Mifi is that it is so tiny and, according to the New York Times’ David Pogue, ridiculously easy to use. It’ll run for 40 hours in standby, much like a cellphone, and when you hit the single switch on the side it springs (or rather, stirs) into life, firing up a little 30 foot bubble of Wi-Fi around you. Once on, the battery will give five hours of surfing but can be plugged into the power as it goes to re-juice the batteries.

Of course, its a cellular modem, so you have some rather low data caps. The $40-a-month plan limits you to just 250MB (yes, megabytes) and jumping to $60 gives the industry-standard 5GB. You can share the connection with up to five devices, so if you’re generous with the neighnors on the Muni, for example, you could burn through that pretty quick.

Gripes aside, this looks to be an amazing device, freeing you from a specific connection for all of your internet-abled gadgets and just covering your personal space with a personal connection. I wonder if this will end up in Europe anytime soon — we have, apparently, excellent 3G coverage."

Via Wired - "Verizon Mifi: Personal Wi-Fi Coming this Month"

A legal Battle for Fon

2009-09-18T20:18:00.002-04:00

I know this is a couple months old, but it shows how a company like Fon cant survive out there without partnerships with other companies like BT, Zon, and more. The legal battle in Germany shows how dangerous sharing your internet connection with the world really is. Any one who logs onto your fon spot is free to do whatever they want to, and you have no way of knowing who is doing it.

To make a long story short this is what happened (From the Fon Boards)

"The defendant makes the claim for unfair competition by focusing on their business model to the free sharing of DSL Internet access service, which the applicant their customers against a fee calculated differently recognizable available. Instead of using their own technical and organizational services at wholesale by a third party in order to develop the market, they use one of the applicant under different conditions created infrastructure "parasitic" to deal with its own offer on the commercial market. "

"We lost a lawsuit against a small operator who does not want its customers (to be) Foneros, but we are negotiating with them to (make them) realize that, like many other operators have realized, that Fon is a good business for them."

"FON lost the first trial on 11.11.2008 -> they did not communicate
FON lost the Second trial on 05.06.2009 -> they did not communicate
"The decision is provisionally enforceable"

FON has to pay € 200,000 due to the Security issues this causes,
25.000,00 € due to not giving a list of Foneros which are customer at 1&1 when the ISP asked for it;
due to the Second lost trial it seems these amounts are now set at 110% ...

FON (defendant) is convicted for the 2nd time, for each breach it has to pay upto 250,000 € - or imprisonment for up to six months"

Read more at:
Fon Boards - "German court decision: FON as "parasitic" WLAN sharing?"
El Fon Blog - "Foneros Panic as Major Legal Loss for Fon Surfaces"

Fonera 2.0n available in USA on 9-23

2009-09-15T20:40:00.004-04:00

Looks like the fonera 2.0n will be coming soon for us in the USA (even though we never saw the 2.0g, but thats ok, the 2.0n is practically a normal wireless router. This is the way it should have been from the beginning. Plan on emptying out your wallet for one of these. It will set you back $100. (Available for Preorder at fon.com)From Martins Blog:

"With the “share a little WiFi at home and roam the world for free” formula, FON got to be the largest WiFi network in the world – currently at over 650K FON Spots. Now, with the new Fonera 2.0n (802.11n) WiFi router that gives Foneros (FON members) an auto uploader/downloader built-in, FON should reach well over 1 million FON Spots.

The Fonera 2.0n is described in the video below. In addition to making you a free, lifetime member in the largest WiFi sharing community on the planet, this is what the Fonera 2.0n does when connected to your favorite hard drive:

- downloads torrents on its own so you can arrive home and watch your favorite content (do not download illegal content, there are plenty of legal torrents available, for example www.legaltorrents.com). You can tell the Fonera 2.0n what you want to download from work or school, from your computer or even from your iPhone or Android.

-downloads from Rapidshare.

-downloads from Megaupload.

-downloads from any site with a file to download, like the latest Ubuntu version.

-uploads videos to YouTube. Send them over WiFi to the Fonera and the Fonera sends those HD monsters to YouTube, freeing up your laptop for the next hours.

-uploads those high quality pictures that take forever to Flickr, or Picasa or even Facebook.

-offers large files for your friends to download.

-prints via WiFi. It sends music to your amplifier via WiFi. It connects to a webcam so you can know what is going on at home. It works with DynDNS.

-converts 3G to WiFi like the MiFi.

-twitters! The fonera is the first gadget to tweet itself. You open an account for your Fonera and the Fonera tells you what it is doing, like “Your video is in YouYube,” or “Somebody connected to your WiFi signal.”

And of course, the Fonera 2.0n is N (802.11n), which means faster WiFi at greater distances. Lastly, if you don’t like to share WiFi and just want to have the Fonera 2.0n all for yourself, or you don’t believe you will make money offering WiFi to others, you can disconnect the FON function altogether…and we will still like you . But before doing that, you should know that Foneros who share their FON Spot earn on average 6 Euros in revenue (over 8 US Dollars a year), which means your Fonera 2.0n just might end up paying for itself and then some."

Why Fon isn't safe

2009-08-21T19:44:00.001-04:00

no encryption = not very safe. This is a funny comic that was posted on the Fon boards. Very true...

Free WiFi and not from Fon

2009-08-06T21:32:00.003-04:00

Forget about Fon this weekend and head to Barnes and Noble to get free wifi. Cheaper and more more reliable service, sounds like a deal to me.

Fonera 2.0n Preview

2009-08-04T20:54:00.001-04:00

WiFi Gadgets: D-Link Wireless Pocket Router/AP

2009-07-30T20:25:00.004-04:00

D-Link, an industry leader in networking, introduces another performance breakthrough in wireless connectivity - the AirPlus G DWL-G730AP Wireless Pocket Router/AP™. The DWL-G730AP is a portable and convenient wireless solution for the traveling business person delivering 802.11g wireless connectivity with a maximum wireless signal rate of up to 54Mbps*. Use it in conference rooms, hotel rooms, or even at hotspots.

The Wireless Pocket Router/AP might be small in size, but is huge in functionality. The DWL-G730AP supports multiple operation modes including: Access Point (AP) mode to create a wireless connection; Router mode to share an Internet connection; and Wireless Client mode to connect an existing wireless network. Easily switch between these modes by using the 3-way configuration switch located at the bottom.

In AP mode, the DWL-G730AP can be used to create a wireless network in a room where a single Ethernet port is provided. Now multiple wireless clients can connect to the network at the same time to share resources and files.

In Router mode, the DWL-G730AP can be used to share a single broadband Internet connection, such as in a hotel room. The internal DHCP server automatically assigns IP addresses to ensure everyone in the room can connect to the Internet. In addition, the DWL-G730AP supports VPN Pass-through and firewall features including Network Address Translation (NAT) and MAC filtering to protect your wireless network from malicious attacks.

When set in Wireless Client mode, the DWL-G730AP allows connection to an existing wireless network, without having to install complicated drivers or additional software. For added mobility, the DWL-G730AP can be powered over USB if power outlets are not available.

The Pocket Router/AP supports WPA-PSK to secure your wireless data communications. In AP mode, the DWL-G730AP adds support for 802.1x user authentication with an external RADIUS server. For setup and configuration the DWL-G730AP can be accessed via D-Link's user-friendly Web-based utility.

Easy to pack and convenient for traveling, the DWL-G730AP comes with an attractive traveling case which also provides accessories including cables and a power adapter. Increase productivity and enjoy the benefits of wireless connectivity while on the road with D-Link's Pocket Router/AP.

* Maximum wireless signal rate derived from IEEE Standard 802.11g specifications. Actual data throughput will vary. Network conditions and environmental factors, including volume of network traffic, building materials and construction, and network overhead, lower actual data throughput rate. Environmental factors will adversely affect wireless signal range.

Featured in PCMag.com

DLink.com

Fonera 2.0n

2009-07-14T18:54:00.003-04:00

How about this Fon manages to put out a release date of the Fonera 2.0n and yet the Fonera 2.0 isnt even available to all countries. Wheres the logic in that! (not to mention Martin was talking about this router like forever ago, I wish I could find that post...)

Martins Blog:

"Last night at the Village Pub in Silicon Valley (Woodside, CA), we launched the Fonera 2.0n WiFi router - available for sale in Europe (€79) on September 15th and in the US ($99) on October 15th. The Fonera 2.0n is similar to the Fonera 2.0g but has a much more powerful processor and is built around the 802.11n standard which means that it has greater range, bandwidth and speed than its predecessor. The launch was attended by 30 of the most important bloggers, Twitterers and news organizations in the world, including The New York Times and The Economist.

Thanks to Loic Le Meur and Geraldine who organised a great event.

Here is the full press release."

Help Wanted: FON Looking for a "Junior Technician"

2009-07-07T23:08:00.002-04:00

I would seriously like to know what their intent is, but other than that I was looking for a good laugh. Hey Martin, pick me, I got great ideas...

FON is seeking a junior technician to reinforce is technical and logistic support team in Madrid.

Responsibilities:
- Technical and logistic support for French / English speaking countries.
- Translate and collaborate for the documentation of FON products and services.
- Help improving FON services, reporting problems faced by users, with the ability to prioritize and propose solutions.
- Follow IT news in French / English speaking countries.

Profile:
- Must: French or English as mother tongue. Knowledge of Spanish is an asset.
- Experience in technical support is an asset.
- Good knowledge internet, computers and network technologies (Wireless).
- Good writing skills
- Proven interest in IT and technology in general.
- Proactive approach, will to learn and to be part of the FON project.

If you are interested in this position, please send your cv to hr@fon.com

Martin V's Blog: "Junior technician at FON"

Fifty Tech Startups You Should Know

2009-07-06T20:47:00.002-04:00

I guess this is an accomplishment for Fon, and my favorite, OpenDNS also made the list. (Featured on BusinessWeek)

Look out Fon here comes French ISP Free

2009-06-16T19:28:00.000-04:00

More competition (and probably a future partnership) Via Martins Blog:

"This week, the French ISP Free launched a community WiFi service similar to ours at FON. Owners of a Freebox v5 who share with FreeWiFi will be able to surf off the WiFi router of other Free customers. As with FON, Free customers must share to get access to the FreeWiFi signal, which is a second SSID broadcasted by their Freebox."

"Still there is a big difference between the new community launched by French ISP Free and Fon and that is that it is a closed community available only to Free customers and only in France as Free only operates in France. Moreover since this community has no aliens neither Free nor its customers can make money offering their WiFi to non donors as is the case with Fon."

Fon partners with E-Plus

2009-06-09T19:16:00.002-04:00

Another Fon partnership (on the side note these partnerships really seem to help the Fon community grow and that's what it is all about. I would really like to see something happen in the US, there is a ton of potential here that nobody has taken advantage of. It would very beneficial for Fon. Hope you read this Martin), article via Martin Varsavsky's Blog:

Germany is Europe’s largest economy and a key market for FON. People in Germany love FON and the Fonero community there is very active. However, FON’s WiFi footprint in Germany is smaller than in other European countries like the UK and France where our Telco partners have helped us grow. Fon´s partnership with E-Plus, is about to change that. Today FON is announcing a partnership with the E-Plus group in Germany. With more than 18 million subscribers and annual revenues of 3.2 billion Euros, the E-Plus group is Germany’s third largest mobile operator. E-Plus is part of KPN group and is considered an innovator in the German mobile Telco market. E-Plus will help the FON community grow in Germany with a planned series of joint activities starting this year. For example, E-Plus will install Foneras in more than 300 E-Plus stores in prime locations throughout Germany. Together, FON and E-plus will target cafes and other public places where we will install FON Spots as part of the “City FON” initiative - similar to the “Chueca WiFi” and “Shoreditch” density projects in Spain and England. E-Plus will promote FON to their 18 Million subscribers and will help us to encourage them to become Foneros. E-Plus customers who register for the collaboration will be eligible for discounts on Foneras and will get free trial access to the FON WiFi network and once they installed their Fon routers they will be able to roam the world for free connecting to other Foneros.

The FON E-Plus partnership is great for two reasons. E-Plus has great marketing power that will increase FON awareness and help the German FON community grow faster. E-Plus is the first pure mobile operator to partner with FON. Initially journalists and bloggers had argued that Fon would be stopped by fixed and mobile operators. Some of these experts confused Fon with a P2P telco network. But the difference here is that while P2P networks destroy value for the music labels, Fon increases value to telcos. How? Well as our partnership with BT, known as BTfon, and others have shown, Fon generates value both for consumers and telcos. For consumers the proposition is clear, you share some extra, limited, bandwidth at home in a secure way with a second SSID or WiFi signal, and in return you roam the world for free. For fixed telcos, Fon increases customer loyalty, reduces churn, reduces customer acquisition costs. Fon enabled fixed operators can also resist price decreases as their customers have WiFi at home and everywhere else. Now for mobile operators the one big benefit of Fon is reduced capex (investment in the network). 3G is a phenomenal service because of its coverage and frankly no matter how many hotspots we put, Fon will never compete with 3G in terms of coverage. So customers who want to have Internet in a car or to find it no matter where they are will always have to use 3G. But when there is WiFi, there are now tons of mobile phones that have a WiFi option, including the iPhone, Nokias, Samsungs, HTCs and others. And use of WiFi is advantageous to operators because: customers are happy with the speeds, they pay their monthly service anyway and they don´t use the much costlier 3G infrastructure. 3G is great for operators for voice and light data. But when people start downloading 300MB movies and TV series to watch in their mobile devices, operators either have to charge for that bandwidth making movies expensive, or prefer that people use WiFi. Moreover some of the most popular gadgets in the world, such as the Nintendo DS, the PSP and so on, only come with WiFi. In this way, E-Plus can now service its customers on all of their connected devices.

All in all, this proves a point I have been making for a long time. FON and Mobile Telcos make great partners. WiFi is a complement to 3G. Moreover we are very excited that this announcement coincides with the launch of the Fonera 2.0. The Fonera 2.0 has just been introduced in Germany (not yet in the UK) and it is a router that not only gives you free roaming but also manages your transfers to the Internet. Fonera 2.0 on its own sends your videos to Youtube, your pictures to Flickr, downloads your files from Rapidshare or Megaupload, or Bittorrent (disclosure this app is working poorly at the moment) and it is especially good for converting 3G signal from HSDPA modules to WiFi.

If you would like to interview me about this announcement please use the contact form of this blog and I will be happy to answer questions.

Give your Fonera some style with a custom skin

2009-05-28T20:02:00.006-04:00

I started this project a little over a year ago and never had a chance to blog about it. So here it is: custom skins for your fonera.

It took me a while to get the dimensions right, but with a little trial and error, I have a final product.

Here's how to make one.
1. download the templates I made.
2. Figure out what design you want to make. I would recommend taking a picture that maybe you took with your camera, downloaded from the internet, or created on your computer.
3. Print out that design from step 2 and print out a blank template. [size should be 276 pixels wide and 432 pixels high (or 2.88 in wide and 4.5 in high]
4. Trace the template over design and cut out.
5. Use double sided tape to stick to your fonera. (You can use sticker paper also but I wouldn't do that just in case you ever want to remove your fonskin)
6. and its that simple...

I would recommend using a good quality paper to print your designs on for best results. Now you can decorate for fonera 1.0 how ever you want. Put pictures of your family, hobbies, or decorate for the holidays, the possibilities are endless.

Template Links:
Template 1
Template 2

Let there be Fonera 2.0

2009-04-21T19:08:00.002-04:00

Its official. Fonera 2.0 is up for grabs in Europe. Bust out your 49 Euros (about 63 good ol' American dollars)

From the Fonosfera Blog:

"As you can see it’s a Dolphin (yeah, I know you guessed by the name, smartass!) and is here to help you and play with you. Flipper does already include all the features we want in the Fonera 2.0 (for now ). Here is the list of the new features compared to old good Platero:
Facebook Uploader: wanna share the pics of the weekend with all your mates? Put them in a pendrive, “facebook” folder and plug it in the Fonera 2.0. Everybody will see you drunk! (No, no, calm down. All the pics and videos are always uploaded in PRIVATE mode )
Flickr Uploader and Picasa Uploader were already added in the Release Candidates.
Install new versions from the Applications menu! From now on, a single click will separate your Fonera 2.0 from the next firmware… no need to visit blog.fonosfera.org anymore But please, come back or we will be sad!
Nintendo DS works.
Freed space for more plugins! We now have 1,5MB instead of 1,19MB
Samba and FONBackup have a separated firewall option.
Fixed IE visualization of the Wizard (yes, IE users, now it works… dunno why we fixed it though, lol).
Fixed Torrent crashing problem with files that have many seeds.
Torrent downloader now lets you chose the port and will be automatically opened on the firewall.
The partitions on multi-partition disks can be now labeled as well.
Polish has been added (thanks Łukasz!).
You can now assign static DHCP leases and domain names inside your local network.
3G connectivity reworked: a long list of providers is preloaded so you need not to configure any value.
And many more things… if you’re interested, check previous posts. I’m not writing all we did again

Bugs: yeah… as always. We will fix them, please report them!

Once again, and after having released the HW to the public, thanks to all involved! Martin, Jordi, John, Pablo, Javi, Steven, Alex etc etc etc etc etc etc etc (yeah, lots of people )"

Wifi.com acquires Whisher

2009-04-14T20:03:00.003-04:00

For all of you Whisher users and for those who have never heard of either. This is a great service that is FREE, doesn't require you to buy proprietary hardware, and offers a public encrypted hotspot.

"The news are out! We can finally disclose what we have been working on during the last few months - Wifi.com completed the acquistion of Whisher in mid-January.

Wifi.com is the logical progression for Whisher, as it combines the best domain possible for a WiFi-related service, our mature client and backend technology, and their experienced team which brings on board business development and marketing experience, as well as US-based operations which can help us grow considerably. We already have exciting deals in the pipeline which will soon be announced.

We would like to thank our fans, our users, our investors, and even our critics, for all their help, feedback, input and support during these three years. With your continued help we can now make wifi.com grow way further!

Below is a short FAQ on the deal.

Q. What does this mean for Whisher users?

A. Whisher users don’t need to worry about service continuity. Simply download the new Wifi.com plugin, available at http://www.wifi.com/download.html. Uninstall your current plugin (Mac users, remember to reboot after you remove the Preferences Pane), and install the new one, entering your current Whisher login & password. Wifi.com uses the Whisher technology for its backend, website and client plugins.

Q. What happened to our shared hotspots, and the maps?

A. The reason the maps have been offline for the last few weeks is that at one point we had to switch our database over to the wifi.com servers, and thus the maps started working at http://www.wifi.com/find.php. We also have a WiFi directory at http://www.wifi.com/location/. The hotspots you have shared are all safe, and available under your account at http://www.wifi.com/ - nothing has been lost.

Q. Will you be offering premium WiFi access?

A. Right now wifi.com will concentrate on the social aspects of sharing. Control who you share with, add as much free WiFi hostpots to the community, and promote interaction between users. Eventually, we will start offering access to commercial and premium hotspots through per-minute and subscription models.

Q. Why hasn’t there been much activity around Whisher during the past few weeks?

A. We have been asked this many times, and we even read comments on other blogs that we were about to shut down - nothing further from the truth! What we have been doing is working extremely hard with wifi.com in order to bring the new service online as quickly as possible. We are a small team, and thus we could not dedicate enough resources to developing Whisher at the same time.

Q. What happens with the Whisher team?

A. Mike Puchol joins wifi.com as CTO, while Ferran Moreno and David Douek both go onto other exciting enterprises, about which we will soon hear great things about. You can find out more about the new team at wifi.com com at http://www.wifi.com/aboutus.html"

via blog.whisher.com

What are the main benefits of wifi.com for users?

Wifi.com enables users to easily share their secure networks with their friends and colleagues. Wifi.com enables users to connect to commercial wifi networks (at hotels or airports) on a per minute basis, which can be significantly less expensive than per day or month service providers. Wifi.com will enable users to more securely browse the Internet when in public by encrypting users' wireless Internet connections.

visit WiFi.com for more info

Fonera 2.0 Development

2009-04-09T20:08:00.005-04:00

Taking a look at the development of La Fonera 2.0 over the past month.

The Jamendo Team demonstrates using a the fonera 2.0 along with a usb sound card and playing the radio through it.

It looks like the fonosfera group has really been at the firmware for the new router. I'm quite surprised actually. I really wish Fon would have put this much work in their previous products. A lot has happened over the past couple of months. Currently they are on the RC2 version of the firmware.

Platero:

Platero is a donkey. It has taken long time to come, but it finally arrived and his side-bags are full of new features. First of all, and before anyone starts asking about it: TORRENT DOWNLOAD IS HERE. Yes, yes! and this is not all… This is the nice list:

Installation wizard. Some questions will be asked the first time you connect to the fonera 2.0 and type “fonera” on your browser.
Youtube Uploader. Take a pen drive, put all your videos in a folder named “youtube” and plug it to the fonera. Your videos will be automatically uploaded to your YouTube account! This is a real 2.0 router.
Torrent downloader. Get some torrent files, upload them to the fonera and this will download them for you. You can turn your computer off and go to bed. Platero will do the work
MegaUpload and RapidShare downloads. Yes, we never announced this. How does it sound? Configure your RS or MU account, copy a big lot of MU or RS links from the Internet and paste them on the fonera interface. The fonera will download the. But wait… you don’t want to download stuff while you surf? no worries, tell Platero to download things at a certain time frame, while you sleep for instance!
3G provider list. Have a 3G USB dongle and don’t know your configuration settings? No worries, tell the fonera your country and your 3G provider… Platero knows the rest (except for your PIN, of course )
Need help? check our videos. Every page in the fonera GUI now has a help button. It will take you to a video where our lovely colleague Martina will tell you how to use that page. Ain’t it sweet? More videos and improvements are coming!
More to come… we’re already developing new features (improved interface), new applications (VPN, advanced networking, Picasa uploader, iStremer for iTunes…), fixing bugs, etc.

RC1:

Added flickr functionality: works as the youtube one. Put pictures on the pendrive on a “flickr” folder and they’re uploaded when plugged!
Added picasa functionality: exactly the same way but on a “picasa” folder.
Nintendo DS now works fine with this firmware!!! (more than one will be happy in Japan…).
Freed space for more plugins! We now have 1,5MB instead of 1,19MB
Samba and FONBackup have a separated firewall option.
Fixed IE visualization of the Wizard (yes, IE users, now it works… dunno why we fixed it though, lol).
Fixed Torrent crashing problem with files that have many seeds.
Torrent downloader now lets you chose the port and will be automatically opened on the firewall.
The partitions on multi-partition disks can be now labeled as well.

RC2:

Facebook uploader is here! You can now add as many pictures as you want to facebook. I used it 2 and I’m already the biggest image uploader of all my friends!
Picasa uploader fixed! it used to crash with many pictures to upload. Not any more!
Static DHCP leases…
All icons are now alligned and look better We also like design
3G connectivity has been reworked and has more options now.
Picasa and Youtube applications now check your password and let you know if it’s wrong
The FONBackup page has been redesigned. Now you can browse the content of your backup to make sure it’s all in there!
The password bug has been fixed, yes.
Added nice icons on the File browser to directly upload pictures and videos to picasa, flickr, facebook and youtube. Nice hack
WiFi-WAN now works better. It didn’t work with some routers before…

We finally have a release date for Fonera 2.0. (at least we hope) Its set for April 21 (2009 in case you forgot) and will only be for sale in Europe. What will the price be? Well they claim it will be about 49 euros or about 66 good ol' american dollars. We'll see it in the usa about sometime in May.

Martin claims that the fonera 2.0 is green. (environmentally speaking). Hahahaha. He doesnt justify his claims very well. No surprise here. His arguments are always weak and vague. Read it for yourself.

"Besides being an exciting gadget, the Fonera 2.0 helps you reduce some of the CO2 you generate in your digital life. The Fonera 2.0 is Green because you can save energy moving your long time consuming tasks from your notebook or desktop to your Fonera 2.0 router, allowing you to shut down your computer while Fonera 2.0 does the uploading and downloading.
When we leave our computers on at night, doing long uploads of our videos to YouTube, or downloading huge files with BitTorrent, our notebook or desktop cannot go to standby mode and wastes from 10 to 100W of electricity - 10W is what we would consume with a very energy efficient notebook with its screen off, and 100W is with a not-so-efficient Core Duo desktop PC using a screen saver with the monitor on. And multiply all this for an entire night, for as many nights as we leave it on!

With the new Fonera 2.0 executing all these uploading/downloading tasks, and with a USB HDD attached to it, you will only consume from 2.95W to 3.85W (depending on HDD model).

This means that, in the worst case scenario, you will reduce to 1/3rd the CO2 emissions that our uploading/downloading generates and if you are replacing an average desktop PC, CO2 emissions using the Fonera 2.0 will be reduced up to 30 times.

So, all of us at FON that have been developing this piece of equipment for quite a while, feel happy that this social router that manages your relationship with the web 2.0 is also greener than any alternative to upload and download."

Not to mention he claims it will pay for itself in less than a year with all of the money you'll be saving. Read on.

"But how much money can you save? Say you keep a desktop PC, consuming around 100 W, powered up day and night to download content from the Net. If the average price in Europe for a kilowatt hour is €0,18, your PC will cost you around €157 per year. Using a Fonera 2.0 you could keep your PC on for only 10 hours a day, and the Fonera will do the downloading/uploading for you during the night, using only around 3 watts. You’ll save €89 in one year and pay back the €49 investment to buy your Fonera 2.0 in less then 7 months. Furthermore, every year you’ll avoid producing 355 kilograms of CO2. Your PC left on day and night would otherwise emit 629 kg of CO2 in one year, equivalent to driving a BMW X3 SUV for 3600km. Turning your PC off at night and using your Fonera 2.0 for downloading will bring your CO2 emissions down to 273kg per year."

and to top it off Martin tries to show the competitive analysis of the fonera 2.0.

Well Fon, you guys put a lot of food on your plate this time. Hopefully your eyes arent bigger than your stomach. Many claims and promises have been made, and for once you guys better stich to it. In the mean time, for the rest of us. We just have to wait...again. So while your waiting, sit back and relax, drinking a fresh Fonapple!

Get Free WiFi by tunneling through DNS - Hak5

2009-03-13T20:13:00.001-04:00

Interesting video on Hak5. Looks like your in trouble Fon!

"DNS Tunneling

The basic premise comes down to this: If you can connect to a wireless access point that has a captive portal running, constantly forwarding your web requests to a payment page, you can most likely bypass those restrictions if you can get name resolution.

Simply open a shell and ping your favorite website. It doesn’t matter if you get ICMP packets back, what you’re looking for is name resolution. If ping says “Pinging www.l.google.com [74.125.95.99]” or similar you should be all set to tunnel your traffic over DNS

In order to get going you’ll need a domain, or sub-domain, a set of Perl scripts called Ozyman, a server to run the ozyman and ssh daemons on, and a little luck

Full step by step instructions can be found at Mubix’s wonderful blog o goodness at Room362.com."

Newsletter: January/February 2009

2009-02-26T20:25:00.001-05:00

YEAR OF THE OX MEETS THE MONTH OF THE AX

FON chops down the price on the La Fonera 1.0!

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, we are offering our FON router, the La Fonera, at a discount for a very limited time. The La Fonera 1.0 will be available for just €15/$15*. Kung Hei Fat Choi!

Offer valid until March 31, 2009. Limit one per user registered with FON. Promotion code required.

Use the FON promo code: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Click here to enter the FON store.

*Price includes VAT/Tax. Shipping not included.

FON SAVES THE DAY

Big city blogger offers thanks to unknown Fonero in small town

Richard Allan, Head of Government Affairs for UK and Ireland, and political blogger, offered thanks on his blog to a Fonero in the small town of Bejar, Spain whose FON WiFi signal allowed Richard to finish some urgent business and get back to enjoying his holiday. According to Richard, “the blog underestimates my desperation at needing to access my work email for an urgent task. This was casting a cloud over my whole holiday. I spent hours trying to find some connectivity and FON really did save the day. Once I saw the FON access point in Bejar I thought I should be OK, but the service was even better than expected - cheap and very easy to use.”

GET READY FOR FON´s BEST ROUTER YET,
THE LA FONERA 2.0

Designed to fit your Web 2.0 lifestyle

Here is what to expect from the next generation of FON routers. Thanks to a USB port, and a growing selection of free open-source applications, the La Fonera 2.0 will let you control data streaming without even having to turn on your computer. While the La Fonera 2.0 manages uploads and downloads at home, you and your laptop will be free to do anything and go anywhere else. The La Fonera 2.0 will also allow you to share printers, scanners, webcams and other USB devices. And, as with all FON routers, the La Fonera 2.0 will allow you to make money and roam the world for free at FON Spots.

We’ve kept the La Fonera 2.0 as beta while our techies perfect its features. But, full functionality for everyone is coming soon. So, get ready!

Learn more about the Fonera 2.0.

Can´t wait? For a chance to win the La Fonera 2.0 (beta version) today, click here.

3 years of Fon

2009-02-06T09:28:00.004-05:00

Well its been three years for Fon and today we will take a look at the current development of the La Fonera 2.0

From the fonosfera blog:

"OktoPussy represents the extendability of our firmware. It’s many arms resemble the plugins you will be able to install in it. It can use many arms at the same time, doing different tasks! It’s multimedia (remember when this word was being use for the very first times for PCs? Now it’s come to the routers!)

The new features and fixes are the following:

Improved look and feel: added a few new buttons and icons
New status page. We still want to integrate more information and format it in a nicer way… but now you can see some traffic stats on the different interfaces. Tell us if you love the graphics like we do!
Added and fixed access to some services from the WAN interface: ftp now works and the webcam can also be accessed from the outside. Samba is the pending issue though, sorry windows lovers…
New languages! Hungarian is there (thanks bmpeter) and well… any others would also be there but we need you guys to translate! Here you can find what to translate…
We fixed the whitelisting system. Sorry, some of you reported you couldn’t sell passes from your devices. Too bad… but over!
There’s a button to reboot the device and one to reset it to factory defaults
Added the option to enable/disable replying to pings on the WAN side.
Some internal working as I said… if you’re interested on what, check the svn logs.

And well, the first to arms of OktoPussy (official ones) are DDNS (DynDNS support) and, surprise, a FONBackup tool!"

"OktoPussy is making making good use of it’s name. Here it comes as OktoPussy-2 ‘reloaded’

In no time it has changed to adapt to the environment. This is the new stuff it brings for you:

Samba works on WAN! Oh yes… You can finally connect the hard drive of your Fonera 2.0 from your home network! Some people were dying to have this
More and more languages! Can you speak Traditional Chinese, Dutch? Then the OktoPussy-2 is for you!
Hey! How about this? we like Windows too! (well, we don’t, but need to pretend). NTFS issues have been fixed so far. If you still experience trouble, go buy a new hard drive!
We have added a nice timer for when you reflash the fonera and get rid of OktoPussy-2 to get the next animal. OktoPussy-2 will say goodbye like a real gentleman. No need to wonder if the flashing is over or not, it will let you know!"

"The Fonera 2.0 keeps growing and showing new abilities: now it’s a jukebox!

What do you need?

Fonera 2.0
USB 2.0 HUB
Cheap USB audio card - or any similar model (the cheaper the better: they don’t lack quality)
USB hard drive or Pendrive
Speakers
mp3 music

What do you get? A device able to play your music. either single songs, full directories or m3u playlists (yes, we used a standard) from your hard drive. You can let it playing and turn off your laptop."

and a video from Martins Blog:

America's Most Wired Cities

2009-01-31T19:33:00.002-05:00

A good article on msn.com. Doesn't have much to do with Fon. LINK

America's Most Wired Cities

By Elizabeth Woyke, Forbes.com

Seattle takes the lead in our annual list of the most broadband-connected U.S. cities.

Move over, Atlanta. Seattle, home base of Microsoft and Amazon, is now the country's most wired city.

While these marquee names have long lent the Emerald City techy cachet, it was Seattle's increased use of broadband that powered it up Forbes' annual list of the 30 most broadband-connected cities in the U.S. High marks in two other wired city categories -- broadband access and Wi-Fi hot spots -- helped Seattle clinch the top spot.

Since 2007, Forbes has measured cities' wired quotient by computing the percentage of Internet users with high-speed connections and the number of companies providing high-speed Internet. Since many urban residents access the Internet by Wi-Fi, we also measure the number of public wireless Internet hotspots in a particular city.

Our formula remains the same as previous years with one exception: the addition of broadband penetration data from Scarborough Research. The change was made to complement similar data from Nielsen Online.

Though Atlanta, Forbes' top wired city in 2007 and 2008, has been dethroned, the Big Peach continues to ride high at No. 2. The Southeast telecommunications hub boasts plenty of broadband users and lots of broadband service providers.

Washington, D.C., rocketed from No. 11 last year to a solid No. 3. Like Seattle, it made dramatic progress in its broadband adoption rate. It also improved its Wi-Fi hotspot showing to rank second only to Seattle.

D.C. scoops up another honor this year, as the wired city to watch, thanks to technophile President Barack Obama. Obama's support for universal broadband and fluency with mobile devices is expected to boost Internet and Wi-Fi access nationwide.

Rounding out the top five wired cities are Orlando, Fla., and Boston. As the location of Walt Disney World, the destination of millions of tourists a year, Orlando is packed with broadband providers and Wi-Fi access points. Boston's strengths include a plethora of universities and an urbane population that help keep its broadband and Wi-Fi usage high.

The surprise of the list is Minneapolis, which improved its standing from No. 11 to No. 7, beating New York and Portland, Ore., among others. Minneapolis' secret? A particularly broad range of service providers, including a number of neighborhoods with 20 different access options for high-speed Internet.

North Carolina suffered the biggest drop, with Raleigh declining to No. 15 from No. 3 and Charlotte dropping to No. 20 from No. 7.

Three California powerhouse cities -- Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco -- shifted places this year to occupy the middle of the list. Los Angeles and San Diego improved their standings while San Francisco dropped seven places due to a relatively low number of broadband providers and Wi-Fi hotspots. However, its No. 1 rating in broadband adoption means that San Francisco can take pride in having the most tech-savvy residents of any U.S. city.

After California, Florida and Ohio placed the most cities on the list. Under Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio has invested several millions of dollars in promoting Internet technology across the state. The ultimate goal is "100% broadband access in Ohio and greater awareness of the personal and economic growth potential" broadband can bring, says Keith Dailey, a spokesman for the Ohio governor's office.

Each year, a few cities slide off the list and a handful make their debut. Dallas and Houston fell just short of the top 30 this year while New Orleans (No. 18), Honolulu (No. 25), Cleveland (No. 26) and Austin, Texas, (No. 30) were added.

While this ranking aims to be as current as possible, advances in broadband technology sometimes outstrip the data available. Take No. 10 Baltimore and No. 14 Portland. The two cities are the first U.S. markets to be outfitted with Clearwire's new brand of superfast wireless broadband, WiMax. But the time lag inherent in collecting broadband data and the difficulty in measuring wireless broadband coverage by city means that neither city's standing takes WiMax into account.

That could change as soon as next year. A Federal Communications Commission spokesman says the agency plans to collect "considerably more detailed" information on broadband access in coming months. Mobile data usage is flourishing, which in turn is affecting the number of Wi-Fi hotspots that restaurants, cafés and retailers offer.

Obama's technology policies may have the biggest impact. In October, the Senate approved the Broadband Data Improvement Act, which calls for better federal and state data on the availability and quality of broadband service in the U.S.

Obama's broadband policy came into focus last month with a proposal for $6 billion in grants for broadband infrastructure as part of a proposed economic stimulus package. The funds are intended to "provide business and job opportunities ... with benefits to e-commerce, education and health care" in underserved areas, according to the bill.

Technology policy groups are hoping for even greater government support. "It's a step in the right direction, but not as effective as what we need," says Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. ITIF would like to see tax credit provisions for broadband as well as grants, which Atkinson calls "cumbersome" for companies.

"Investing in broadband will have an impact on jobs, education, health care and carbon emissions," says John Davies, vice president of Intel's World Ahead Program, which promotes technology access and education. So expect the next year or two to bring vast changes to all American cities, whatever their "wired" rank.

Lower Prices for Fon Passes

2009-01-26T20:14:00.005-05:00

Looks like once again Martin decide to change the price of Fon passes. Although at this point we don't know what kind of change, but hopefully it will be a little better. The price of passes previously almost doubled in price. First $3 and $10 for a day pass and a pack of 5 day passes respectively. Currently, $4.90 and $14.90 for a day pass and a pack of 5 day passes respectively. Next step, probably somewhere in the middle.

From martins blog:

"We also have some things that we are playing against. As I warned my readers, we spend with the increase of fares for the aliens. We will lose again in two weeks. This was a mistake, but he showed the benefits for a CEO to have a blog. Bills criticized me when I realized I had made a mistake."

Express your opinion on the Fon Boards: "Lower passes prices in 2 weeks"

Looks like we will have to wait and see. I always thought that the prices were pretty good to begin with, but on the other hand almost all of the passes sold on my Fon Spot were sold when the prices were at the highest. So from what I get out of this is if you really have the need to WiFi (occasionally, not everyday), Fon is a viable option. At the current price of passes it would cost you almost $90 for an entire most of wifi passes (one pass a day). Seems like you might be better off paying for an internet connection and buying a Fonera to get the roaming that you may need. So if your an alien, think twice about your internet usage, think about Fon's poor coverage and reliability of their services before purchasing large amounts of day passes.

Fon 2008

2009-01-04T13:00:00.004-05:00

Today I'm going to take a look at what Fon has accomplished (or lack of for that matter) during 2008 and what we could potentially see this year.

1) We saw the failure of the fontrepreneur program. It was a good idea, but it showed that foneros don't want to put out money and buy routers to help expand the community.

2) Fon started to offer unlimited access to GMAIL and other Google services at all Fonspots. Makes sense since Google provided funding for Fon, but to bad you don't have to authenticate to use these services. So in return, you have no idea who is using your connection.

3) La Fonera 2.0 was first mentioned last April and now is currently selling as a beta model. Firmware being developed by the fonosfera community started off slow, but now things are starting to pick up.

4) Fon raised an additional $9.5 million in funding.

5) Fon and BT started The World’s Biggest Mexican Wave.

6) Martin's Blog: "Why do some Foneros disconnect their Fonera WiFi router?" As if he already didn't know why people do it.

7) Martin releases Fon's economic figures back in May. Too bold of a move, it seemed to cause quite a stir amoungst the community. LINK

8) Change of FON_AP to FON_FREE_INTERNET. Somewhere I missed out on the free part.

9) Fon Russia and Comstar Partnership

10) The ZON@FON WiFi Community in Portugal

11) In July Fon Started a wiki. http://wiki.fon.com

12) FON’s partnership with Sony PSP

13) Joikusoft and FON unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot software for Mobile Phones. LINK

14) "One million Foneros!" hahaha...

15) Fon Raised the price of day passes, lowered the price of La Fonera, and limits the number of 15 minute free trials aliens can use.

16) Meraki comes out with their solar powered nodes and shortly afterwards Fon hints at their version of an outdoor fonera model.

17) I'm sure there is more, feel free to comment below.

Now onto 2009.

1) Fon should release a final version of La Fonera 2.0. Hopefully, as long as Fon doesn't screw anything up. The ideas are pretty good for it. As Long as its affordable, I'll buy one.

2) Maybe we'll see an outdoor fonera. More than likely it will be expensive and a piece a crap. It doesn't need to be a fancy router, it just needs to withstand the elements. Something like this will help Fon out a lot. Coverage is a huge issue that Fon has yet to deal with. Most people have their routers deep within their house, where the signal is lucky to reach outside. This doesn't benefit anyone, but the owner of the hotspot. An outdoor fonera will get that precious FON_FREE_INTERNET signal to cover more area and would help Fon and foneros.

3) I know Martin has hinted at this is the past, but maybe we could see a Wireless-N Fonera. Hopefully we won't see this.

4) Fon needs to develop better firmware for La Fonera and La Fonera+, along with new firmware for non-fon routers (linksys, etc...)

5) or Fon could just FAIL.... (always a possibility, really don't want this to happen)

Anyway, 2008 was a fun year for me and My Fon Blog. I saw Fon do some stupid stuff and some good stuff. Personally I'm looking forward to 2009, this could be a big year for Fon. On a side note, I finally got paid from selling passes on my Fon Spot, almost $30. So it is possible to make money from Fon (It took me two years to get there and most of it was made in the last 2 months). So Fon can do good, it just depends on location. If they can continue to expand the community, we might just be getting somewhere. Who knows, we'll just have to wait and see.

I'm pretty sure I missed stuff, so if you have any ideas, comments, or thoughts, feel free to comment below or drop me an email. Have Fon everybody!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T00:57:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year From My Fon Blog!

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-25T23:35:00.003-05:00

Happy Holidays from My Fon Blog!

FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: November/December 2008

2008-12-11T22:46:00.003-05:00

NEW YEAR, NEW FON ROUTER

Make a resolution to get a FON router at a discount

Ring in the New Year cheaper with FON WiFi. FON is offering the La Fonera router for the special holiday price of €19.95. Add the La Fontenna WiFi signal booster to your cart for just €9.95. Buy now for yourself or for a friend.

FISH AND CHIPS MEETS FON AND BT

Foneros get even more access to WiFi in the UK

Planning a trip to London? Don't forget to pack your favorite WiFi gadget because you will be able to find WiFi nearly everywhere! Foneros already enjoy access to more than 100,000 BTFON WiFi hotspots throughout the UK for free. FON and BT have extended their collaboration so that now, Foneros can also get easy access to over 3,000 BT Openzone commercial hotspots at special Fonero rates.

So, Ring in the New Yearwhen at London Heathrow Airport, look for a BT Openzone WiFi signal, connect and surf the Internet.
It´s that simple, or as they say in the UK, Bob´s your uncle!

MAKING MONEY BY LAND AND SEA

After many years of frustration with other providers, Sébastien, port employee and WiFi manager at the Baie des Anges marina in France, decided to install FON. It fit his needs better than the competition. Installation was cheap, the connection fees were not too expensive for his clients, and payments could be made online. And best of all, Sébastien made more than 1000 Euros over the past five months by selling FON WiFi access to boat owners and to tourists who frequent the apartments nearby! Make money with your WiFi.

Tips! Sébastien recommends installing your router up high and in a location where there is a strong demand for WiFi.

GO GO GADGETS!

FON makes it easier to connect to WiFi with more mobile devices

Have an iPhone, Sony PSP, Nokia or other mobile device? FON has improved its captive portal so now you can connect to the Internet with many WiFi gadgets with as much ease as with your laptop. Learn more.

Find FON Spots on your iPhone

FON Maps is a cool little application, developed by a Fonero in Japan, that uses iPhone´s GPS to determine your location and the FON Spots closest to you. You can also use it to find FON Spots elsewhere in the world. It is available for free from the iTunes app store.

Download the FON Maps app.

Hotspot Shield by AnchorFree

2008-12-10T18:08:00.000-05:00

Free security and privacy product ensures your anonymity while on-line.

Public networks (both wired and wireless) are great. After all, what would life be without connecting while at airports, hotels and coffee shops? However, the danger to your personal data exists even if you connect to a fee based open network. Your passwords, credit card numbers, and any data you send can be seen and associated with you personally. Standard antivirus software won't protect you as this threat is on the network, not your laptop or iPhone.

That's why AnchorFree is pleased to offer Hotspot Shield. Our application keeps your Internet connection secure and anonymous on public networks.

100% Security Through a VPN

Hotspot Shield creates a virtual private network (VPN) between your laptop or iPhone and our Internet gateway. This impenetrable tunnel prevents snoopers and hackers from viewing your email, instant messages, credit card information or anything else you send over the network. Hotspot Shield security application is free to download, employs the latest VPN technology, and is easy to install and use. So go ahead - Get behind the Shield - Try Hotspot Shield today!

Hotspot Shield runs on:

Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows 2000
Mac OS X (10.5 Leopard)
Mac OS X (10.4 Tiger)

LINK: http://hotspotshield.com/

WiFi in your camera

2008-12-05T22:29:00.006-05:00

Eye-Fi

A Wireless Memory Card?

Yes, there really is Wi-Fi inside that tiny little card. We think it’s going to change the way you take, save and share photos.

All Eye-Fi Cards come with everything needed to make it simple to set up and connect to your home Wi-Fi network. After that, pop the card into your digital camera and start capturing memories. It stores pictures like a regular SD card no matter where you are, and uploads automatically as soon as you return to your wireless network. All you have to do is turn the camera on.

And, now you can choose the Eye-Fi Card that best suits your needs. You want to just get your photos hassle-free to your computer? How about easily sharing your memories on the Web? Or, maybe you’d like to be able to upload and tag your photos on the go? No problem! Find the right Eye-Fi Card for you.

How It Works

Upload to Computer

All Eye-Fi Cards can automatically deliver your pictures to your computer. PC or Mac. It’s as simple as choosing a folder. The card will then wirelessly deliver your photos to that destination and even arrange them in neat, date-stamped folders.

Your photos can only be delivered to the computer and folder you’ve chosen, so you don’t have to worry about your photos going elsewhere, even if you’re in a different wireless network. And, if you’re a Mac user, you can choose to have your photos delivered directly into iPhoto for the best experience.

To receive photos in this mode, your computer must be turned on and running the Eye-Fi Manager software. It’s a fast and convenient way to upload your photos for later enhancing, publishing or archiving. No messing with cables or cradles.

Upload to Web

Now it’s truly effortless to share your memories with friends and family. The Eye-Fi Card wirelessly connects to your home Wi-Fi network and uploads your pictures to a photo sharing or social networking website of your choice. Select one from more than 20 sites.

Behind the scenes, the Eye-Fi Service intelligently handles your photos, getting them to your chosen site, taking care of log-ins and passwords, even re-sizing pictures if your destination requires it. It’s secure and private, and photo uploads are free and unlimited with Eye-Fi Share and Eye-Fi Explore.

Upload to Web and Computer

You can save your photos on your computer and share to the web with no extra effort.

When your computer is off, Eye-Fi’s Smart Boost technology will automatically send photos from the camera, through your home Wi-Fi network, to the Web-based Eye-Fi Service. The Eye-Fi Service will then deliver images to a photo-sharing site and to your computer when it is eventually turned on. In this approach, the speed at which images are transferred from the camera is paced by the home’s Internet connection.

And, if your computer is on while you are uploading, the card will deliver your photos there first at an even faster speed and then send them up to your photo sharing site from your computer.

****************************************************************************************

Wireless Cameras

The Panasonic Lumix® DMC-TZ50 has a built-in wireless LAN communications function (Wi-Fi®) that complies with IEEE 802.11b/g standards. It provides wireless Internet connection to a T-Mobile HotSpot 1 or home wireless LAN system without having to use a PC or cell phone. Once connected, you can access Google's Picasa Web Album and upload your photos right from the camera.

Easy Camera Editing of Web Album Photos

You can also use the TZ50 to check and delete photos that you've uploaded to a Picasa Web Album, without having to use a PC or cell phone.

Share Photos Immediately with Friends and Family

After you've uploaded your photos with the TZ50, you can receive an e-mail (Gmail2) on your PC or cell phone with a URL link to your photos. Then you can add a message and forward the URL to friends and family so they can check out your Web album immediately. Have fun sharing your photos anywhere you go.

LEICA 28mm Wide-Angle Lens with 10x Optical Zoom

Now you can fit sweeping landscapes into a single frame with the 28mm wide-angle setting. Pull in subjects from far away to capture even subtle facial expressions with the dynamic 280mm telephoto setting. Ideal for traveling, the Lumix® DMC-TZ50 9.1-megapixel digital camera combines a wide-ranging LEICA DC Vario-Elmar lens with a handy, compact body. The Extra Optical Zoom function also extends the zoom to as much as 16.9x, giving you even greater telephoto power3.

Intelligent Auto Mode Helps Get Great Shots in Every Situation

Set the TZ50 to iA mode and let the five Intelligent Auto functions team up to help prevent shooting errors. Intelligent Exposure corrects lighting differences, so images come out just the way you see them; Intelligent Scene Selector chooses the mode that best fits the situation; MEGA Optical Image Stabilization (O.I.S.) helps prevent blurring from hand-shake; Intelligent ISO Control helps prevent motion blur; and Face Detection helps produce clear portraits by optimizing the focus and exposure settings.

Other Cameras:

Google...

LINKS:

Panasonic.com: Panasonic Lumix® DMC-TZ50
Martin Var's Blog: "Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50 with WiFi"
Eye-Fi

Outdoor Foneras under development

2008-12-01T14:13:00.005-05:00

Fresh out of Martins blog. Maybe Fon is listening to us Foneros after all (or just trying to copy Meraki, sort of). Maybe in a couple of years we might actually be able to purchase it. I would like to know how they plan on getting power to the device, how much it will cost, and other specifications as well. LINK

"Here are a few pictures of a ruggedized Fonera for outdoor deployments. We built it with one of our Asian partners and we are now testing it. This is not a product announcement. As my readers know this is my blog and I share R&D projects as they evolve. But we have had a lot of requests for outdoor foneras and we are working on the concept."

Express your opinion on the Fon Boards: "Outdoor Foneras"

Meraki Solar-powered outdoor nodes

2008-11-28T19:16:00.007-05:00

Meraki is finally getting around to releasing their solar powered outdoor nodes. (A little late considering they first brought it up on their website in June 2007.) Here's an article about it from arstechnica.com.

WiFi goes green: solar-powered outdoor nodes coming soon

By Glenn Fleishman | Published: November 18, 2008 - 09:15PM CT

Mesh WiFi firm Meraki released an addition to its hardware family of routers today with a wall-plug adapter ($179). The Meraki Wall Plug, which features a hole to screw the unit to an outlet, complements the existing Indoor ($149) and Outdoor ($199) nodes. Meraki's hardware includes access to (and requires use of) a hosted back-end management console.

The Wall Plug is part of Meraki's push for apartment buildings and complexes (multiple dwelling units or MDUs, in real-estate parlance). The company said it will offer a $5,000 bundle aimed at MDUs that will cover 100 to 150 apartments or other units.

The company also said that their long-awaited Meraki Solar would ship December 4. A worldwide run on solar power equipment when oil prices spiked increased the price of the panel required for the unit. The price of the Solar model runs from $749 for a bring-your-own-panel model up to $1,499 for areas with shorter days or less light.

Company cofounder Sanjit Biswas said that Meraki also decided to change the battery type after receiving feedback from beta users, which is part of what led to the 1-year delay. In winter or monsoon season, the beta product "would run out of juice in a couple of days with no sun." Customers said that they needed guaranteed 24-hour performance, and Meraki switched from sealed lead-acid to lithium iron-phosphate for greater capacity. Biswas said this dropped the weight, too, which reduces shipping costs for the many remote areas that the Solar unit has been tested in and will likely be used.

Meraki Solar is available with different
panel options, including bring your own

Biswas said that Solar was used in a lot of places the firm didn't expect–anywhere that power wasn't available, such as parks, but also where even though an electrical outlet would be installed, there were ancillary costs.

Some customers would say, Biswas noted, "A union electrician is going to cost me a couple of thousand dollars." He said that many Meraki customers were "choosing to do Wi-Fi because it was a relatively low-impact amenity to offer," so the higher initial price of Solar was easily canceled out by lower installation and recurring costs.

Biswas said that Meraki continues to extend its market into areas it didn't predict, such as small enterprises: firms of 50 to 200 employees that cover large areas, such as doctors' offices or shopping malls, and that outsource their information technology services. "That's a surprise for us: it's not just about public access, sometimes it's just about plain Wi-Fi access, even internally," Biswas said.

The centralized management console is a plus for this segment because Meraki customers can manage accounts and operations themselves after a system is set up, or use an integrator for remote help. Biswas noted that the console and hardware now support enterprise features, including WPA2 Enterprise (802.1X plus WPA2), quality of service (for VoIP and streaming), and multiple SSIDs (for running several virtual networks with different access privileges). The system has scaled to manage thousands of devices on a single network, as well.

Meraki highlighted a customer installation in Chile, which they only found out about after the network lit up on their map showing active installations. In Lebu, a fishing village 300 km from Santiago, residents had no real Internet access, although there was both a satellite feed and an E1 (similar to a T1) leased line. A local integrator lit up the town for about $20,000 in less than a week, and the network now has over 1,000 regular users. Biswas said, "They're using all the same sites that you and I would use."

The city isn't charging for service, because it found "the collection costs would be too high," Biswas said. He noted, "We've seen this model replicated elsewhere in Latin America," where a feed is spread throughout a town, taking residents from no Internet access to low-end broadband. (Meraki allows bandwidth shaping for shared access.)

WiFi Gadgets: Sony Mylo - COM2

2008-11-22T20:30:00.002-05:00

The Sony Mylo (My Life Online) is a pretty cool wireless device and now it's even better thanks to a second version release. Not a bad price either, its only $199 with free shipping (Price valid until January 31, 2009) at SonyStyle.com

Features:

The Wi-Fi Sony® mylo® internet device gives you what you need to stay connected. It conveniently uses wireless LAN technology so there are no monthly bills or long-term contracts. Call your friends on Skype® for free or IM them on AIM®, Google Talk™, or Yahoo!® Messenger using the back-lit slide-out keyboard and enjoy unparalleled communication in the palm of your hands. You can also browse the Web, take photos and share them on the 3.5-inch LCD touch screen. All this on a device small enough to take virtually anywhere. Sony® mylo®, the fun of a PC in your pocket. Also available in white.

Shoot Video...Now you're a star

Now you can capture video using the built in camera to capture video in MPEG4 in addition to capturing still images. There are many websites where you can upload photos and videos like Flickr™ and YouTube™ as well as social networking websites. Because our device supports uploading and downloading files mylo® Internet Device owners can post content to many of these popular content websites¹.

Enhanced Web Browsing

Through its hi-res touch-screen, you can browse many popular websites. Your portable Internet experience is now closer to the internet experience on a PC. Enhanced Web Browsing combined with Adobe® Flash® Lite 3 support means you now have access to websites like YouTube™ and others. Mylo's upload and download capability allows you to use popular websites like Facebook® for posting and commenting¹. Adobe® Flash® Lite support also means you can play compatible casual Flash games.

Instant Messaging. Where and when you want.

With the Sony® mylo® Internet Device you can always stay in touch. Instant Message your friends with the most popular messaging software from AOL®, Yahoo!®, Google™ and Skype®. Send and receive e-mail through AOL® Mail, Google Gmail™ and Yahoo!® Mail. And, with COM-2's new backlit keyboard you can type wherever you want to regardless of how much light is available.

mylo Widgets

A widget is a small application that is generally designed to do one simple thing but to do it really well. COM-2 comes with several pre-installed widgets that range from basic like the Google search widget and the Facebook® Notifier that tracks activity on your Facebook page to more advanced apps like the My Contacts widget that works as a consolidated buddy list for all the IM applications on the mylo. In addition to the preinstalled widgets COM-2 users will be able to download new widgets from the new COM-2 product website. And, for the first time, users will be allowed to register as a developer in order to gain access to the technical resources they will need to build their own widgets.

Built in Camera

With the built in 1.3 Megapixel camera imaging and everything you do online are at your finger tips¹. Now you can capture photos, edit them on the built in photo editor and because COM-2 features upload and download capability you can post them directly to your blog or even to your Facebook page¹. All on the mylo without the need for a PC.

Voice Calling with Skype®

Skype lets you enjoy free Internet phone calls to and from any Skype enabled device and PC, anywhere in the world! Or Skype-Out to any phone number for a nominal fee.

Music and Video

MP3, ATRAC, WMA (Secured and Un-Secured) and now AAC codecs. Play music you've purchased from many compatible online music stores. Multi-task: listen to music³ while you IM or surf the Web¹. COM-2 also supports Windows Media DRM 10 so you can even use your mylo communicator with many popular subscription music services. The improved video player supports both MPEG4 along with the improved video quality of MPEG4 AVC.

Free Wi-Fi access at McDonald's and more ¹⁰

Sony’s mylo® COM-2 device owners receive free¹⁰ Wi-Fi access at over 10,000 Wayport Hotspot locations nationwide; including over 10,000 participating Wi-Fi enabled McDonald's® Restaurants, 70 IHOP restaurants, 600 hotels, and more.

SHOUTcast® Internet Radio

You can now enjoy many of the over 22,000 free SHOUTcast® Radio stations on your mylo® COM-2 Internet Device. Whatever your tastes may be, SHOUTcast Radio is bound to have a station for you. From music, to talk, to sports, news and more, SHOUTcast Radio offers COM-2 users selections of nearly every genre from all parts of the world¹. Enjoying unlimited free radio on your COM-2 is easy through the SHOUTcast Radio widget and associated service¹.

New Fonera 2.0 Firmware and videos

2008-11-17T22:02:00.005-05:00

Looks like the Fonosfera developers community have been busy working on the new firmware for La Fonera 2.0. It looks pretty sweet so far, I hope in the end everything will function as well as it looks.

"The new interface is based on the concept of a Dashboard. We wanted to remove any similarities with traditional router management consoles. They’re ugly, not stylish, difficult and not useful at all. This Dashboard is not final, but you can get the concept. There’s a summary area, which is secondary to the 2 main frames: the “Action icons” which have 3 fixed buttons (”Services” for samba, ftp etc, “Plugins” to manage your plugins and “Settings” to change the router configuration) and the icons for each plugin that is installed in the future so they are easy to access. The second frame is the devices/events frame. It will let the user know which supported devices are currently connected and configured in the Fonera 2.0. It is quite 2.0-ish…seamless autoupdates etc."

(Dashboard)

(File Browser)

Here are some video of La Fonera 2.0 (described by Fon CTO Jordi Vallejo) and a video from the Facebook Developer Garage sponsored by FON.

Links:
Martin V's Blog: "Fonera 2.0 preview"
Fon Blog: "Fonera 2.0 New Firmware"
Fonosfera Blog: "Sylvester is out!"

15 minute free trial change along with prices

2008-11-15T19:03:00.004-05:00

It seems like the people at FON can not make up their minds. They keep changing everything. Now (according to the wiki),

WiFi Ads, or simply 15 free minutes of Internet

Simply want to check your emails or test a FON Spot? No problem! We indroduced the 'WiFi Ads', so 'Aliens' can see that they are well come by Foneros. Thanks to this feature, 'Aliens' can watch a short advertisement and get 15 free minutes Internet. When is this useful? not always do you need Internet for a whole day, perhaps you're on holidays and you only want to fetch your emails or send one. Perhaps the signal of the FON Spots where you can connect to seem a bit weak, and you'd like to test them before you activate a day pass.

The WiFi Ads can be used by any Alien Fonero once every 10 days.

You need a browser with a Flash-Player to watch the video.

Now its 15 minutes free access once every 10 days, and they changed the prices a little. Also, they seem to be pushing people to buy more passes because of this and they made the 15 minute free trial button pretty darn small.

Link to my previous post on this...

My Fon Blog on Twitter

2008-11-12T19:18:00.000-05:00

For those who use Twitter: twitter.com/myfonblog

(It's basically a feed from my blog, but if any posts are updated I make note of it in Twitter)

Fon Failure: Unfolding News

2008-11-07T22:25:00.000-05:00

Its been a while, but I remember when Fon first introduced unfoldingnews.com. It was about a year ago and according to Martin V it was his "vanity search engine" and it is "a search engine that draws from different sources but tells you about all the very recent stories that blogs and news sources have." It was a stupid idea and he finally admitted it.

Read On:

Martin V Blog: "Unfolding News"
Martin V Blog: "Unfolding News unfolded"
Martin V Blog: "Fon.gs and other Fon´s “toolvertorials”"

Free Access For buying La Fonera

2008-11-01T19:56:00.000-04:00

I just noticed this at the Fon Shop. It seems Fon is giving away free access before you even get your Fonera up and running.

The La Fonera is the 1-port edition of FON’s cool WiFi routers. It is easy to install, offers data transfer rates of up to 54Mbps, and works with all your WiFi-ready devices (laptops, phones, MP3 players, etc.). The standard range is between 10-50 meters depending on the environment.

What’s even cooler, La Fonera allows you to securely share your broadband Internet service with the FON Community. In exchange, you get free access to hundreds of thousands of hotspots created by you and other FON members. With La Fonera, you can also determine how much bandwidth you want to share, personalize your Access Portal with your own videos and pictures, and even make money from others accessing your hotspot! The moment you buy your La Fonera you get 3 weeks of free access to all our FON Spots worldwide - so you don’t have to wait for it to arrive to start surfing.

Buy La Fonera and get the FON Signal Booster ‘La Fontenna’ for only $/€9.95 more (save $/€ 10!) To get the discount, add both products to the cart.

Fonera 2.0, Fonosfera.org Update, and more

2008-10-28T22:04:00.002-04:00

Well it looks like La Fonera 2.0 is starting to emerge and more people are getting their hands on them. Already the English Fon boards have set up a special area just for stuff on it. (LINK). Also, its seems that the Fon Blog got a Fonera 2.0 and managed to test it out with a usb webcam. (LINK) Of course for those wondering whatever happened to the Fonosfera program that was first brought up back in April. Well it seems like they finally have a website and a blog, so check it out.

Now, here is something I found interesting. Martin hosted a Fonero brunch in Berlin (On Oct 21, 2008).

"Next Tuesday at 10:30 I am hosting a Fonero brunch in Berlin. The purpose of this brunch is to brainstorm on how we can grow Fon in Germany so there´s more free WiFi available to Foneros. Until now UK and France have grown considerably more than Germany and it is my interest to get ideas from German Foneros what Fon can do to grow faster in Germany. I will also share my views on the start up scene post financial collapse.

If you want to attend the brunch, please RSVP here. It is at Cookie´s Cream Restaurant in Friedrichsstrasse."

I wonder how it turned out. I'll post back if more information arrises. Hey Martin Varsavsky, if your ever coming to the USA let me know. I have great ideas for you and I'm always hungry.

here's how it turned out:

Link: Martins Blog: "Fonero brunch in Berlin: introducing the Fonera 2.0"

La Fonera 2.0 - Now Sold Everywhere

2008-10-23T08:50:00.002-04:00

La Fonera 2.0 is available in all the countries that FON operates in. $49.95
I'm debating on whether or not to buy one :)

Fon Raises Prices

2008-10-21T09:40:00.005-04:00

Its sad, but true.
Single Day Pass = $5
Five single day pass pack = $15
15 Minute free trial => Three times every 30 days (*for each unique device) via Fon Wiki

Feel free to express your feelings on the fon boards.

http://wiki.fon.com/wiki/FON_Passes

https://www.fon.com/login/gateway/

German Fon Blog

My La Fonera is up and running

2008-10-20T13:07:00.000-04:00

After one week, I gave into Fon and turned it back on...

Hacking La Fonera Part 2: Episodes from Hak5

2008-10-19T21:56:00.002-04:00

Putting out another hacking the fonera post. This time its some good stuff from Hak5.com

Episode 405 — Windows USB Booting, Fon Hacking Illustrated, DimDim, DeskSpace and Portals

October 1, 2008

Booting Windows from a USB key using the Windows Automated Installation Kit. Unlocking the Fon and Installing Jasager — Illustrated. Desktop and meeting collaboration using DimDim, the free open source online collaboration software. Turn your Windows desktop into a 3D spaces cube, and more!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Season 3 Episode 7

January 29, 2008

In this episode Chris Gerling shows us a little reverse engineering with Crackmes, Darren unlocks OpenWRT on the Fon router, Will Coppola demonstrates inprotect, a nessus/nmap web frontent, and Matt fixes the Rock Band guitar once and for all. Plus HakSnacks including installation package building with Iexpress, a Rock Band drum kit for your PC, converting flash videos to mobile media formats, and browsing the Internets with calculator. Grab some pwnj00z, the next hour is designated for technolust!

My Fonera is officially turned off

2008-10-13T09:26:00.004-04:00

Will I turn it back on, probably, but for now it is off. It seems that the start of every school year I get a new leech that takes advantages of free trials. I thought this year would be different, but it wasn't. Then all of a sudden, the same person taking advantage of the free trials suddenly bought two day passes. So I tried to contact them, no response. Now, I'm having people connect to my Fon Spot just to take advantage of unlimited access to Google services. Great Idea Fon, too bad people don't have to authenticate to do this.

In the mean time, to be continued...

FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: September/October

2008-10-13T09:22:00.001-04:00

Getting better all the time

September was an important month for FON thanks to the registration of our 1,000,000th Fonero, “Wilkinson,” in Japan! But of course we wont stop there. We´ve already set a new target of two million Foneros and our plan to reach that goal in record time is called Fonero Gets Fonero. With this plan, existing Bill and Linus Foneros with active FON Spots can invite their friends to a La Fonera WiFi Router at a discount. If Aliens start being extra nice to you, you´ll know why.

Making bucks near Starbucks

Martin G., a political science student living in Queens, New York, has only been a Bill for about six months and he is already making enough money as a Fonero to cover the cost of his Internet service. Last month he beat his personal best by earning $95. “It isn´t a fortune,” he says, “but it makes me happy because it costs me no real money or effort to earn.” Most of this money is generated by sharing FON WiFi with savvy Starbucks customers nearby who know they can pay less by connecting to a FON Spot. Martin´s advice to other Bills is to “get a La Fontenna and aim it as precisely as you can towards where the people are - the local café or apartment building or whatever. Give it time. People may see your signal a few times before they try it, then they´ll use it regularly.”

New cool Apps for your Phone

Is that a FonJoikuSpot in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Get ready to turn your phone into a WiFi hotspot, for free WiFi anywhere at anytime! The Finnish company Joikusoft has created a software that turns the 3G signal on your Nokia phone into an outgoing WiFi signal for all your WiFi laptops and gadgets. No more need for USB dongles, cables or Bluetooth. And in true FON spirit, you can of course share your phone's WiFi signal with anyone you like.

We have worked out a deal exclusively for Foneros. Download it here to receive your special Fonero discount.

Ready. Aim. fring!

You have probably heard of fring already. Gone are the days where you made calls on your phone, and chatted on your laptop. Nowadays you can communicate in any way you want, by any means. fring brings all the networking applications you know from your computer, onto your phone. Free calls with your Skype friends, live chats with your MSN Messenger contacts... you name it.

For the FON community, fring has developed a way to make it much simpler and faster to log in to any FON Spot from your phone. The log in happens automatically, without you even noticing it. Now connecting to a FON Spot with your phone is as easy as ready, aim, fring!

Download FON ready fring here.

A piece of advice from Martin Varsavsky

2008-10-11T22:00:00.001-04:00

From Martin Varsavsky's Blog: "My advice to other start up CEOs: the Fon experience"

I like to call this article "My advice to other start up CEOs (how to make a lot of money, without a lot of effort): the crappy Fon experience." Martin forgot to fill in the blanks.

Once again he keeps wasting his time reiterating his previous statements

"Last Spring we cut our burn rate at Fon. We reduced our head count from close to 100 to 60. It was painful. It was sad. But it had to be done. Since then Fon has grown faster than ever. Not because the people we let go were not doing anything. Quite the contrary, they had been doing a lot. But many times a start up is about first building a platform and then managing it. And just as it takes hundreds of people to build an office building but less to run it it also takes less people to run a platform like Fon than it took to build it. Bottom line is that when we went from 100 people to 60 we managed to grow revenues faster than ever before and to cut losses from over 1 million euros per month to 350 thousand. We also grew to one million foneros around the world. Our revenues grew from 20K euros per week to 50K and the good news is that these sales are mostly cash into the company (Fon is like a telco without capex or opex). What we also achieved is to stretch our investor´s money into 09 and to need a very small round to break even."

"We cut our burn rate by 70% mainly by reducing headcount, raising revenues, raising margins, and particularily by raising margins on the sale of the foneras themselves which we used to give away practically for free. In our case we discovered that the free mentality of the internet was not especially good for a wireless community as most people who got their routers for free did not connect them while those who paid were more serious about the whole thing. Moreover we are now about to raise the rates we charge Aliens who connect to Fon. Partly because we need the money but also again to show the value of becoming a fonero and share and never have to pay. We only charge $2 per day while other WiFi companies charge way over $10. Plus the value of our passes increases as we have more hotspots. Fon now has 10 times more hotspots around the world than our second closest rival. In the UK and Japan our coverage is especially good."

Selling routers for practically free? Charging $2 for a day pass? 10 times more hotspots around the world than our second closest rival, who is this, did I miss something?

I guess Martin missed the fact that T-Mobile just launched a mobile broadband plan in the UK for£2 per day, £10 for 7 days access, and £20 for 30 days access. Also, you need a USB Modem for £49.99. Not to bad of a deal.

(More at El Fon Blog: "T-Mobile UK Launches Mobile Broadband @ £.67/day!")

FYI: 1 British pound = 1.7068 U.S. dollars

Read the comments on Martin's post, I love when avoids questions that would show the real side of FON.

Link: Fon Boards

Get La Fonera 2.0 Beta

2008-10-09T21:37:00.005-04:00

Available in select countries only...

It should have potential as long as Fon doesn't screw things up again. If you ask me, Fon wasting their time and doing things bass ackwards. "Hey, lets put our firmware on a linksys router and later forget about it. Hey lets create a stupid router with no ethernet ports. Hmmm, it seems like people want an ethernet port on thier router, so lets make a router with ONE ethernet port. Hey, I got another idea, lets take the previous router and add usb support to it (and dont forget, we cant do the work ourselves, so let the people develope what they want)..." Come on Martin, fix this. Taking baby steps is not going to help Fon progress and your spending money in all of the wrong places. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. Feel free to read Martins blog post and the one written by El Fon Blog:

Martin V

El Fon Blog
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

La Fonera 2.0 Beta

EUR39.95

DEVELOPERS ONLY
La Fonera 2.0 Beta is a 2 Ethernet Port and 1 USB port cool WiFi FON router. It comes with an Internet port to connect to your existing broadband service, an additional LAN port to connect a wired device to your network and a USB port. La Fonera 2.0 is easy to install, offers data transfer rates of up to 54Mbps, and works with all of your WiFi-ready devices (laptops, phones, MP3 players, etc.). The standard range is between 10-50 meters depending on the environment.

The Fonera 2.0 is intended to be a Liberator of your desktop computers by being able to both execute applications that you usually need to run in background on your computers and to help you share USB devices between the notebooks connected to your Fonera 2.0, like USB Disks, USB Scanners, USB Printers or Webcams (Not all USB Devices supported).

In addition to all that, Fonera 2.0 also allows you to get Roaming privileges to the whole FON Network by sharing part of your bandwidth at home, and also allows you to make some money from the visitors who still don´t share their connection.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: This Developers Only Edition works as a Fonera+ in terms of WiFi router specs and performance but the USB Port has limited functionalities as we are still developing cool applications with our partner communities that you will be able to load into the device later on. If you are not a Developer we recommend you either wait for the final product that will include most of those applications Out-of-The-Box or purchase our Fonera+.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Dimensions	93.5 mm x 25.5 mm x 110 mm (excluding antenna)
Antenna Connector	RP-SMA connector (reverse SMA)
USB Port	USB A-type Receptacle (USB 2.0)
Antenna	External detachable antenna (1,5dBi)
Authentication	WEP 64bit/128 bit, WPA, WPA2, WPA mixed
Encryption	TKIP, AES, Mixed
Network Standard Support	IEEE 802.11b / 802.11g (up to 54 Mbps)
Ports	1 Ethernet WAN port (10/100Mbps) for internet + 1 Ethernet LAN port (10/100Mbps) for computer connections and other devices (network printer, storage, etc.)
SSIDs	One public (named FON_FREE_INTERNET by default) non-encrypted and one private (named MyPlace by default) encrypted with WPA-PSK

WiFi Gizmos: WiFi Watch

2008-10-01T14:03:00.000-04:00

"If you’re the kind of person who’s always on the lookout for a WiFi network and want to find the best place to get connected, enter the digital WIFI Watch, a great watch with a handy WIFI detection feature.

Lots of people rely on WiFi, having to be hooked up to the net is essential for both business and pleasure, and when out and about, WiFi ‘clouds’ help to get the best out of web-enabled gadgets. The WiFi Watch is a discreet alternative to holding your laptop computer in the air, and it's no trouble whatsoever to keep with you at all times. At the touch of a button this clever digital watch will reveal the strength of local WiFi connections, so you can select the best location from which to hook up.

In addition to its essential WiFi feature,the watch is anti-static, shockproof, is water resistant up to 100 Metres, and comes with useful functionality including an alarm, countdown timer, world time zone mode and calendar, and all this for under £25.

More Information

•Digital WiFi Watch
• Watch Features: Chronograph, Countdown, Alarm, Hourly Chime, Dual Time, Lap Memory
• Wifi Detection
• Detects interference intensity of 2.4ghz signal
• Detects AP stations over 100 metres outdoors
• Anti-static and Shock Proof
• 100 Metres Water-Resistant"

www.crazyaboutgadgets.com

LCD screen for La Fonera

2008-09-25T21:09:00.000-04:00

Lefinnois.net and Alexandre Thomas both managed to attach an LCD screen to their Foneras. Both projects are pretty sweet. You can send images to the Fonera and have them displayed. I don't know what you would use it for, but still, who wouldn't want one?

Links:

Lefinnois.net - "LCD screen for LA Fonera"

Alexandre Thomas - "LCD for Fonera"

My Fon Blog Celebrating One Year of Blogging

2008-09-20T21:00:00.001-04:00

It's hard to believe that it has been a whole year since I have been blogging about Fon (I have been with Fon for about a year and a half) and it has been a lot of fun. I think. This has been (and will continue to be) a great learning experience.

Sold My First Day Pass

2008-09-17T23:53:00.002-04:00

This is the most exciting moment ever for me. Somebody finally purchased a day pass from my fon spot. A year and a half later, and $2.20 in 15 minute free trials to get this far. Maybe someday I will reach $20 and actually get paid.

Wi-Fi Detector T-Shirt

2008-09-15T19:15:00.000-04:00

Here at ThinkGeek we're pretty lazy when it comes to technology. We expect our gadgets to do all the busywork while we focus on the high level important tasks like reading blogs. That's why we hate to have to crack open our laptops just to see if there is any wi-fi internet access about... and keychain wi-fi detectors, we would have to actually remove them from our pockets to look at them. But now thanks to the ingenious ThinkGeek robot monkeys you can display the current wi-fi signal strength to yourself and everyone around you with this stylish Wi-Fi Detector Shirt. The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates. Finally you can get the attention you deserve as others bow to you as their reverential wi-fi god, while geeky chicks swoon at your presence. You can thank us later.

Product Features

Glowing animated shirt dynamically displays the current wi-fi signal strength.
Shows signal strength for 802.11b or 802.11g
Black 100% Cotton T-Shirt
Animated Decal is Removable (with hook and loop fasteners) for Easy Washing
Battery Pack is Concealed in a Small Pocket Sewn Inside the Shirt
Runs for hours off three AAA Batteries (not included)

Washing Instructions

Carefully peel animated decal from front of T-Shirt
Unplug ribbon connector behind decal and remove decal
Unplug battery pack and remove it
You can leave the ribbon cable inside the shirt
Machine wash gentle cycle on cold
Hang to dry
Please Note: If you plug the connector into the battery pack backwards the shirt will not animate properly. It will not damage the shirt. Simply reverse the connector.

Thinkgeek.com

One million Foneros!

2008-09-11T19:14:00.005-04:00

Well it seems Fon is now officially claiming that there are one million foneros. Below is Martin Vars blog post and the bold is my comments intermingled in it:

Growth at Fon has accelerated. So much so that we reached one million community members and close to 300K lit routers (this is ten times more routers than T Mobile has on a worldwide basis).

Back in May Martin claimed "Number of registered Foneros is at 830,000. Number of registered hotspots is 332,000 and of active hotspots at anytime has gone up to 212,000," but we really know how that turned out. LINK

Yes it is true that a lot of the growth from Fon is now coming from operator deals, especially from BTFon but that is also great news because Fon is proving that we can work with telecom operators. Fon is showing fixed operators that by adding our shared wifi functionality with their broadband customers they have less churn, a lower cost of customer acquisition and a higher ARPU. We are also beginning to show some wireless operators that as laptops get smaller and phones get bigger mobile devices become data hogs and that WiFi is a great complement to 3G. The iPhone which even though is sold as a 3G device forces you to use WiFi to get downloads from iTunes is another proof of concept.

There he goes again comparing WiFi to 3G...

Sales of routers and day passes keep growing as we reduce losses. Last year we were loosing more then a million euros per month and this “burn rate” has shrunk to around 300K per month this summer. Our goal of reaching break even by the end of 09 which seemed so distant last summer now looks within site. And the fundamentals are with us. When we started Fon, back in 2006, 200 million WiFi chips were sold. The number of chips sold this year is expected to reach 1 billion.

This information is at least consistent with what he claimed before.

And more telecom operator deals are in the pipeline. In July we started Fon in Portugal in partnership with the largest cable operator in that country called Zon. Together we created Zon@Fon to serve their 1.5 million customers plus everyone else in Portugal who would like to enter the network. Next month we will launch Fon in Russia together with Sistema, the largest fixed and mobile operator in the country and we have 8 such deals in negotiations. Top countries for Fon are the UK, Japan and France. Japan in particular is the country where we sell the most routers. These countries are also some of the three most technologically advanced large countries in the world. To me this means that others will follow.

Again maybe Fon is benefiting from all of these partnerships, but does it benefit the Foneros? Personally, for me Fon is useless. I don't make any money as a bill (only $2.06 to this date and I will never get paid that money) and free roaming doesn't do me any good if there are practically no Fon hotspots anywhere I go (to be exact there are like 5 within a couple mile drive) Also, what about the USA, has Fon even attempted to partner up with any ISPs or whatever. Fon "had" a partnership with Time Warner Cable, but as far as I know of this is nonexistent.

Regarding our employees, we now have a more international team, reflecting the fact that Spain is less then 10% of our market. I take this opportunity to congratulate the people working at Fon for the great results achieved. Even if the company is not profitable yet, our goal gets closer every day and I personally put my time, money and heart in Fon. I also want to thank our investors at BT, Google, eBay, Index and others. I also thank all Foneros around the world as without their enthusiasm Fon, the largest WiFi network in the world would not exist.

"Even if the company is not profitable yet, our goal gets closer every day and I personally put my time, money and heart in Fon." - From my perspective, I have seen "progress" that has had very little impact on me.

"I also thank all Foneros around the world as without their enthusiasm Fon, the largest WiFi network in the world would not exist." - So if everyone turns off their routers, Fon would no longer exist? Who would have guessed that. Good thing he remembered to thank the investors for dishing out millions so that Fon can sell more crappy routers.

I guess for my one final thought. There maybe over one million foneros, but how many of those accounts are actually active? How many of them are Bill/Linus(s) and aliens? Who knows...

UPDATE:

The English Fon Blog and El Fon Blog also have blog entries on this whole deal. It seems that there is some ambiguity between the Fon Blog and Martin Vars Blog. Fon blog claims there are 400,000 active hotspots while Martin claims 300,000. Someone forgot how to count I guess. Anyway I feel bad for this person claimed to be the "1,000,000th Fonero" because in reality he is just the 1,000,000th person to register. (including all of the people who might have multiple accounts and fake email accounts to get a 15 minute free trial)

Links:

Martin Vars Blog: "One million Foneros!"

El Fon Blog: "A Million Times, NO."

Fon blog: "FON WiFi Community welcomes 1,000,000th member"

WiFi remote controlled car

2008-09-05T20:55:00.002-04:00

In the market for a mobile Fonspot that travels around on a remote controlled car? PJMDS from the Fon boards managed to take a remote controlled car and a Fon router and control the car wirelessly through his computer.

Or JBProjects.net created something very similar using a Linksys WRT54GL.

Links:

Fon Boards: "coming soon, mobile fonera"

Youtube: PJMDS's Channel

Wifi Robot - JBProjects.net

Fon Status sticker

2008-09-02T21:16:00.000-04:00

For anybody who wants to monitor the status of their fonera or fonera + check out this website.

http://www.fonera.be/status.php

It was created by skynetbbs and Kyros from the Fon Boards.
Fon Boards: "status.fonera.be"

FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: July/August 2008

2008-09-01T22:33:00.003-04:00

I guess I will add something new to my blog, I will start posting the Fon newsletter every time it is sent via email. This could help out those who don't receive it. (8/21/08)

Greetings to all summer loving Foneros! The summer might almost be over, but we hope that your holidays are not. Here at FON we would like to add some WiFi spice to your summer by inviting ourselves along on your vacations. Bring your Fonera with you to the beach, on your camping trip or on board your 45ft yacht… any place can become a FON Spot!

FON teams up with ZON in Portugal

The 17th of July meant the official launch of the ZON@FON WiFi community. Thanks to this partnership, FON and ZON, the biggest cable TV provider in Portugal, with more than 1.5 million customers and 400.000 broadband subscribers, give rise to the biggest WiFi network in Portugal. With the ambition of reaching 100.000 FON Spots in Portugal, they will even further expand the biggest WiFi network in the world, already showing off with 250.000 hotspots (and counting!). So there you have it, one more excuse to book that flight to Portugal!

¡¡ Bem-vindos !!

TWITXR gets a makeover

As you might know, FON and its research center FON Labs are constantly developing applications and goodies which make the digital life of Foneros more enjoyable. One of their creations is Twitxr, an application that lets you upload photos from your mobile devices, such as iPhone or Nokia, directly onto your favourite photo online sharing site. Check out the latest version of Twitxr with further improvements for mobiles using Java and Windows Mobile and start sharing your photos directly from your handset!

FON France

Planning to go to France for vacation? Why not stop by the beautiful village of Paray le Monial, nestled in the vineyards of Bourgogne? FON and the local municipality have been installing FON access points in strategic locations all around town, and you don’t even have to leave the hotel room to get connected. Three of the leading hotels in the area, the Parada Hotel, the Basilique Hotel and the Aux Vendanges de Bourgogne have equipped their premises with FON. One of them decided to give up its previous WiFi solution and go with FON instead. Good choice! If you want to find out more visit the website of the Paray le Monial municipality or our FON maps. And don’t forget, after you’re done blogging about the subtleties of the different Burgundy grapes, drop a small merci to the Fonero who shared her WiFi connection with you.

Tips and tricks from our experts

As you know we do our best at FON to always keep you up to date with the latest progress and improvements of our Fonera, but as with most things in life, it is the small things that matter the most. Therefore our hottest recommendation will be this: Reboot la Fonera every now and then. Just switch it off and turn it back on. This will clean up the memory which avoids it getting stuck and ensures it keeps on sending the FON signal. Also if you didn’t see any signal from your la Fonera, this should bring it back to life!

Have a great summer!

The FON Team

Roaming With WiFi: The IEEE 802.11r Standard

2008-09-01T18:00:00.003-04:00

This came up on my Extremetech.com feed and I somehow completely looked right over it, until this morning when I noticed El Fon Blog wrote about it. This is something that IEEE has been working on since 2005. How will this turn out, we will have to wait and see. Can this benefit Fon? Definitely. Once again this is another wait and see what happens situation.

The IEEE standards body quietly published the 802.11r roaming specification last month, allowing handoffs between Wi-Fi access points in the same way cellular phones shift between basestations.

The IEEE 802.11r-2008 standard was ratified on July 15.
While most cellular phones need to shift between basestations with ranges measured in the hundreds or thousands of yards, a Wi-Fi connection can typically be measured in feet. VOIP phones that are on the go may need to shift between different access points, hence the reason for the 802.11r standard. Handoffs between Wi-Fi APs also need to maintain persistent security features if possible, which the new standard allows.
The handoffs take place in less than 50 milliseconds, rather than the several seconds needed to negotiate a secured connection.
Consistent handoffs are also a required feature of a Microsoft initiative, Vi-Fi, a joint project between the University of Massachusetts, Microsoft and the University of Washington.
The Wi-Fi Alliance, meanwhile, has tried to implement a complementary standard, called "Voice Personal," for routing VOIP calls over Wi-Fi signals. In late June, the Alliance developed a certification program, which has approved devices like the Intel 4965AGN Wi-Fi link and the Intel 3945ABG network connection that have been tested for interoperability.

Links:

El Fon Blog: "New WiFi Roaming Protocol Established"

Extremetech.com: "IEEE 802.11r Roaming Standard Quietly Approved"

Wikipedia.com: "IEEE 802.11r-2008"

Google: "802.11r"

FON’s partnership with Sony PSP is good?

2008-08-30T22:52:00.003-04:00

Well it looks like Martin is at it again. After a negative response from the whole partnership (well at least on the English Fon Boards, I imagine there were many more responses), it seems like Martin had to comment on the situation and reassure foneros that this was the right move. Read the topic on the Fon boards, its pretty good reading.

Following last week’s announcement of FON’s partnership with Sony PSP we received a few negative comments from Foneros wondering why we would give PSP users access to FON’s network, even if they don’t share their connections like Foneros do. The reason is simple: this partnership helps us grow the network and promote FON, which ultimately is extremely positive for Foneros.

How does Sony PSP help FON? Simple, Sony is marketing FON to over 10 million PSP users. They find out about FON, understand how practical it is for them, learn how to enjoy it, and join FON. Sony is telling them what we already know: that FON is good. Sony will promote La Fonera and encourage PSP users to buy one to get full access to FON Spots. The announcement has already shown significant impact on Fonera sales in Japan, and it has been only a week.

PSP owners who will connect to FON Spots thanks to this partnership won’t have full access to the Internet nor will they be able to play online games, unless they become Foneros. With this deal they can only access the official PSP site and download custom themes, wallpapers, special characters only available at FON Spots (this only accounts for extremely minimal traffic). What a PSP owner wants to do online is to play online games, and for that he will need to buy a Fonera and share his Internet connection as any other Fonero.

The majority of the Foneros understand that this is great and we haven’t received a single complaint from our fellow Japaneses Foneros, quite the opposite. So far this agreement is only for Japan, but we’re working to extend it to other countries. It helps growing the network of FON Spots and we are sure that the success of the deal in terms of FON exposure, new Foneros and new FON Spots will be replicated in every country.

My Blog Post - "PSP® and FON collaboration"

Fon Tips and Tricks Part 3: Making a Parabolic Reflector

2008-08-28T21:27:00.000-04:00

In effort to improve the La Fonera signal distance, without having to pop the extra cash for a new antenna (or the overrated La Fontenna), you can make a Parabolic reflector to make the standard La Fonera antenna into a directional antenna.

There are tons of information on this all over the internet. I have tried making a couple of them myself, but really could not test it at long distances (so I really can't tell how it worked). On the other hand this idea is all over the internet and many people have had great success with it. So O encourage you to google the idea and try it for yourself.

Kyros Parabolic Reflector

Fon Boards - "La Fonera signal distance?"

freeantennas.com - windsurfer

El Fon Blog - "Wifi Reflections [1 EDIT]"

TechAnvil - Building A Parabolic WiFi Booster

TechAnvil's design for a Parabolic WiFi reflector

Canadian research involving Fon and Meraki

2008-08-24T12:52:00.000-04:00

A recent study by Canadian researchers brought up some good points about Fon and its competitor Meraki.
El Fon Blog: "A Case Study of Fon and Meraki"

"Is it Good to Share" By Catherine Middleton and Amelia Bryne Potter

PSP® and FON collaboration

2008-08-22T13:16:00.006-04:00

Seems Fon and Sony got together and once again came up with an idea that only impacts people in Japan (more countries later??). Anyway, now PSP users (in Japan) :

"can access PSP® Internet Browser Official Site from FON’s wireless LAN access points (hereafter FON Spots). With this PSP®×FON collaboration, PSP users are able to easily access and enjoy videos, wallpapers and custom themes of PSP software as well as videos for PLAYSTATION ®3 from over 44,000 FON Spots in Japan and over 2,200 FON livedoor Spots, which primarily cover central Tokyo."

I also found some other interesting stuff as well:

"Finally, from August 23rd, the service launch date of PSP®×FON, we will begin sales of FON’s wireless routers “La Fonera” and “La Fonera+” in PC equipment section and game device section of some of Japan’s biggest retail stores including BIC Camera and Yodobashi Camera."

"FON Members Access Points
Global: 1,002,552 members and 292,131 APs
Japan: 84,389 members and 44,661 APs as of August 15, 2008)"

The idea seems useless to me, but this somehow doesn't surprise me. Happy reading!

Martin's Blog: "FON partners with Sony PSP in Japan"

Fon Blog: "FON and PSP® “Play Station Portable” Collaboration"

Fon Boards: "PSPxFON"

GigaOm will sell 1 billion WiFi chips this year

2008-08-20T13:09:00.002-04:00

Once again Martin is posting useless stuff and for some reason is comparing WiFi to 3G. Go ahead and skip reading his blog post and read the article originally published by businessweek.com

"When we started Fon, back in 2006, 200 million WiFi chips were sold. This year according to GigaOm it will be 1 billion. This is a simple reminder that when critics say that 3G will kill WiFi they are just wrong. If anything 3G makes people even more interested in getting data which then operators want to offload to WiFi. The iPhone is a case in point. Why is it that when you buy songs from the iTunes store you can only do it over WiFi and not over 3G even in the 3G iPhone? The paradox of mobile carries is that they want you to pay for expensive data plans but then….use WiFi."

Businessweek.com: "VCs Hope to See Wi-Fi Everywhere"

Martin Var's Blog: "1 billion WiFi chips"

Fon Boards: "Thoughts on 1-billion-wifi-chips from martinvarsblog"

Joikusoft and FON unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot software for Mobile Phones

2008-08-12T23:45:00.006-04:00

A recent article on the Fon blog "Joikusoft and FON unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot software for Mobile Phones."

Looks like now fon can go mobile. JoikuSpot turns your cell phone into a mobile hotspot. The idea sounds good, but in reality it's going to suck. Just imagine, a poor alien logs into this mobile hotspot and purchases a pass. Then the owner of this mobile hotspot leaves. You have a couple options. Find this person and follow them just to get the internet, find another fon spot (if your lucky), or just sit there because you just lost $3. Although Fon's ideas of giving La Foneras to the homeless (see links at end of post) to help them make money might actually come true. Granted the homeless person can afford this. Sounds like one of those TV shows, "From Rags to Riches, How Fon saved my life." I guess we will have to wait and see when this comes out.

El Fon blog also commented on the partnership as well.

From The English Fon Blog:

Joikusoft and FON unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot software for Mobile Phones

Joikusoft, the mobile software development house, maker of the mobile Wi-Fi HotSpot software JoikuSpot, announces a collaboration with FON, the world's largest WiFi community. FON and Joikusoft are releasing an exclusive version of Joikusoft's mobile hotspot solution, named FonSpot. FonSpot turns a mobile phone into a Wi-Fi HotSpot, enabling any laptop, iPod Touch, internet tablet or other Wi-Fi device to connect to the Internet using any compatible mobile phone as a secure high speed Internet gateway. FonSpot with Wi-Fi will effectively replace Bluetooth, cable and USB dongles to access the Internet using mobile phones and 3G connectivity. The FonSpot is a fully secure mobile internet HotSpot solution, and makes use of the maximum security offered by the underlying Symbian OS platform. The users have full control over who will be able to access their FonSpot's wireless internet connection.

FonSpot is an exclusive offering for members of the FON community. Foneros will be able to share their mobile Internet connection with up to 5 friends, who can connect to their FonSpot. It will be made commercially available for Foneros during 3Q 2008. According to the Joikusoft Chairman and Founder Mr. Tom Ojala "FON is a perfect companion to roll out wireless Wi-Fi access in mobile phones as FON already has an established user base of hundreds of thousands of physical FON Wi-Fi base-stations. FON users will now enjoy even broader access to internet wherever they are, literally carrying internet in their pocket."

Alexander Puregger, FON's Director of Business Development, states, "FON is very glad to work with Joikusoft as the company is proving to be an innovative contributor to the proliferation of Wi-Fi. And FON is all about WiFi everywhere!”

About Joikusoft
Joikusoft is a software development house focusing on mobile innovation. The Joiku mission is to liberate mobile internet with mobile Wi-Fi HotSpots. Joikusoft has developed a mobile Wi-Fi HotSpot software client called JoikuSpot for S60 Smartphones. User base of JoikuSpot exceeded 300.000 in June 2008 and grows exponentially. Joikusoft was the first in the world to roll out a mobile Wi-Fi HotSpot solution in February 2008 at 3GSM Barcelona. Joikusoft is a privately held company, founded in 2007 in Finland and has headquarters in Garden City, Espoo, Finland.
Visit www.joikusoft.com for more information.

About FON
FON is the world's largest WiFi community. FON's mission is to stimulate the growth of WiFi around the world by creating a global community of "Foneros". FON's La Fonera routers have been designed to enable Foneros to share their home Internet access in a completely secure manner. Founded in February 2006 in Madrid, Spain, FON investors include Google, Skype, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital and British Telecom. Currently FON has over 250.000 hotspots worldwide and more than 900,000 registered members in Europe, Asia and America.
For more information, visit FON at www.fon.com

Links from Martin's blog:
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/walking-hotspot-patent-pending.html
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/mobile-fonera-fresh-from-our-labs.html
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/fon-and-the-homeless.html

Hacking La Fonera Part 1: DD-WRT

2008-08-01T12:14:00.014-04:00

WARNING: THE ORIGINAL CREATORS OF THIS GUIDE ARE NOT RUNNING THEIR WEBSITE ANYMORE. PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ME WITH YOUR PROBLEMS. SOME OF THE LINKS CONTAINED IN THIS POST MAY BE BROKEN AND YOU MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO DOWNLOAD ALL OF THE NECESSARY FILES. I WILL FIND A WAY TO DISTRIBUTE ALL OF THE FILES SO THAT USERS CAN DOWNLOAD THEM. UPDATE: ALL LINKS SHOULD BE GOOD TO GO

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I know that this is totally against what My Fon Blog is all about, but I think it is important to take the time and try to understand why the hacker community loves Fon (and their cheap routers). Yes, I'll will admit it, one of my Foneras is running DD-WRT and I don't regret doing it. I now understand why people do it. The whole process is very simple and once everything is done, you will realize the power that DD-WRT has and how crappy Fon's firmware really is. Sometime later I will make a post on how to put the Fon firmware back onto the router, and maybe some other stuff as well. We'll just have to wait and see. Have Fon! (Yes, I was trying to make a joke.)

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(Below is a is a copy and paste from UselessHacks (with a few minor changes), They are the ones who created this guide and deserve full credit. I am merely distributing this guide to help people out. Oh yeah, here's another tip, disable any firewall or security suite you have inst alled on your computer. Some stuff won't work with it running.)

FON Router Hacking Guide

Note: This guide has been updated as of Aug 8, 2008 to reflect the new flashing procedures related to DD-WRT v24 SP1.

The following is a guide to flashing the Fonera Access Point, into a mini-router (albeit with only one ethernet jack) running the excellent, open-source DD-WRT firmware. This provides many useful features, such as turning the router into a wireless repeater, or even an ethernet to wireless bridge.

Preparation

Download the latest version of the following items (I recommend saving them all into a special folder on your desktop for convenience):

Putty

HTTP File Server (HFS)

Tftpd32 (Extract the Tftpd32 zip file to your special folder)
DD-WRT Fonera Firmware-> Atheros WiSoc-> Fonera

(Download linux.bin for v24-sp1, root.fs and vmlinux.bin.l7 for pre-RC7)

SSHEnable.htm

openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma

out.hex

It’s important to download everything you need before you get started, because you will not have internet access throughout this tutorial. All of the programs listed are installer free, meaning that at the end of this tutorial, you just have to throw everything in the trash. No messy uninstalls, no shortcuts all over the place.

If you have already enabled SSH access on your router, please skip to Flashing the Firmware.

Connecting La Fonera

Plug the Fonera into the power, and into the LAN port on your computer.

In Windows, disable all other network connections besides the one connected to the Fonera. You’ll need to set the following settings in the LAN ports properties. Disable all firewalls, or at least make sure that port 22, 23, and 9000 are open.

IP: 169.254.255.2

Subnet: 255.255.0.0 (System will fill it in for you)
Default Gateway: 169.254.255.1

DNS: 169.254.255.1

Once all three leds are blinking (1-2 minutes), you should be able to open a browser, type 169.254.255.1 and see the Router Status. If not, wait a little while longer. If you are still not getting anything, re-check your settings.

The first time you log into the router, you will need to supply the following:

Username: root

Password: admin

If the firmware version is 0.7.1 r1 or lower, please skip to Enabling SSH.

If you have version 0.7.1 r2, you will fall in two categories:

1. Your router shipped with a previous firmware, and you let it update itself from FON’s servers. You will need to downgrade before continuing with this guide.

Downgrading

After the Fonera has been on for a couple minutes, push the reset button on the bottom, and hold it in for several seconds (30-45 secs is fine). Wait for it to finish rebooting (1-2 minutes), then check again to see wh at f irmwa re version you have.
If it’s now at or below 0.7.1 r1, then you may move to the next step, Enabling SSH.

2. Your router shipped with 0.7.1r2 installed. You will need to do the Kolofonium Hack, then when you come back here, you will start at Enabling RedBoot.

EDIT- This is found on the DD-WRT Wiki:

This works on the newest firmware:

1. Hold reset button for 30 seconds
2. Remove the power connector while still holding reset.
3. Replace power connector and continue holding reset button until “wifi” lights up and goes away again (a good 2-3 minutes of holding it).

4. Let go and wait for “wifi” to come back (2-3 minutes).

Supposedly, you will now be able to follow the rest of this guide without troubles. I will need to verify this, but for now, I am all out of routers. Feel free to give it a shot.

Enabling SSH

Now open the SSHEnable.htm (that you downloaded earlier), hit submit.

Enabling RedBoot

Now open HFS. The first time you open it, a prompt will ask you if you want to include HFS in your context menu. I chose “No”. Now, right click on the little house icon, and select “Add Files…”, and add openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma and out.hex.

Now, open Putty and SSH into 169.254.255.1, click “Open”:

If this is your first time SSH’ing into the router, you will be faced with the following dialog prompt. Despite how serious it sounds, never fear, just click “Yes.”

Username: root

Password: admin

As you type in the password, nothing will appear to happen, but continue typing anyways, and then hit enter.

I’ll also share with you a huge time saver. In order to copy from this tutorial the commands and paste them into the SSH terminal, first highlight what you want to copy (make sure not to include any extra spaces), right click the highlighted text and hit copy. Then right click your SSH window. This will automatically insert whatever you highlighted into where the green cursor is located.

Once logged in, execute the following command:

mv /etc/init.d/dropbear /etc/init.d/S50dropbear

This enables SSH permanently so that if you need to reset the router, you won’t need to run SSHEnable.htm again. If you have done this step before, it will return an error, and you can just continue on with the guide.

For the following, after every line, hit enter and wait for it return to a prompt again:

cd /tmp wget http://169.254.255.2/openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma mtd -e vmlinux.bin.l7 write openwrt-ar531x-2.4-vmlinux-CAMICIA.lzma vmlinux.bin.l7 reboot

Now a prompt should pop up saying “Server unexpectedly closed network connection”; Just hit “OK”. The Fonera will now be restarting and will take 1-2 minutes (all three lights will be on). If you are impatient, you can do the following:

Unplug the Fonera from the power. Open up a command prompt in Windows (Start->Run->”cmd”), and type the following line:
ping 169.254.255.1 -t
Plug the Fonera back into the power. Whenever you start to see “Reply from 169.254.255.1…”, you can move on to the following step.

Right click on title bar of Putty and hit “Restart Session.” You will now need to login again.

Username: root

Password: admin

For the following, after every line, hit enter and wait for it return to a prompt again:

cd /tmp

wget http://169.254.255.2/out.hex mtd -e "RedBoot config" write out.hex "RedBoot config"

reboot

Click “OK” on the unexpected connection close box.

Congratulations, you have now enabled RedBoot, which will allow us access to the bootloader. There we can flash the firmware to DD-WRT.

You can now exit the HFS program if you want.

Flashing the Firmware

Change the IP to 192.168.1.166, subnet 255.255.255.0.

You should not need to change the gateway or DNS servers, but you can if you want (i.e. if you are having an error). They will need to be changed back in the last step if you decide to change them here.

Now open Tftpd32:

Make sure that linux.bin (Note: root.fs and vmlinux.bin.l7 for pre-RC7) is in the same folder as the Tftpd32 program (or in the folder that is listed in “Current Directory” in Tftpd32).

Now, we can use Putty again for Telneting to the Fonera, or you can use whatever other program you have available. Right-click title bar of Putty, select “New Session.” Make sure to select the Telnet button in Putty, IP to 192.168.1.254, and then change the port to 9000. Its best to do it in that order, since Putty automatically changes the port number to 23 whenever you click the Telnet button.

If you are having trouble knowing when to start the Telnet connection, open up a command prompt in Windows (Start->Run->”cmd”), and type the following line:
`ping 192.168.1.254 -t`
Whenever you start to see “Reply from 192.168.1.254…”, then hit connect in the Telnet client.

Once you’re connected, enter the following commands. After each line, hit enter. The “fis” commands will take a long time (up to 10 minutes), but it will return to a “RedBoot>” prompt whenever it is ready to continue (refer to the second picture for how it will look). I got impatient and entered the next lines before the prompt appeared, and I ended up having to restart the whole process.

For the newer releases after RC7,

there is a new flashing procedure, as follows:

ip_address -l 192.168.1.254/24 -h 192.168.1.166

fis init

Type “y”, and hit enter.

load -r -b 0x80041000 linux.bin fis create linux

Do not reboot yet. Boot script needs to be modified.

RedBoot> fconfig and press ENTER

Run script at boot: true Press ENTER

Boot script: .. fis load -l vmlinux.bin.l7 .. exec Enter script, terminate with empty line >> fis load -l linux and press ENTER

>> exec and press ENTER
>> Press ENTER

Boot script timeout (1000ms resolution):

10 and press ENTER
Use BOOTP for network configuration: false Press ENTER
Gateway IP address: Press ENTER
Local IP address: 192.168.1.254 and press ENTER

Local IP address mask: 255.255.255.0 and press ENTER
Default server IP address: press ENTER
Console baud rate: 9600 and press ENTER
GDB connection port: 9000 and press ENTER

Force console for special debug messages: false Press ENTER

Network debug at boot time: false Press ENTER
Update RedBoot non-volatile configuration - continue (y/n)? y and press ENTER
... Erase from 0xa87e0000-0xa87f0000: .

... Program from 0x80ff0000-0x81000000 at 0xa87e000

0: .
RedBoot>reset and press ENTER

Now skip to Post Flashing.

The following procedures are for RC6.2 and earlier:

ip_address -l 192.168.1.254/24 -h 192.168.1.166 fis init

Type “y”, and hit enter.

load -r -v -b 0x80041000 root.fs

Note: The line below is correct; “rootfs” is not a typo.

fis create -b 0x80041000 -f 0xA8030000 -l 0x002C0000 -e 0x00000000 rootfs

load -r -v -b 0x80041000 vmlinux.bin.l7 fis create -r 0x80041000 -e 0x80041000 -l 0x000E0000 vmlinux.bin.l7 fis create -f 0xA83D0000 -l 0x00010000 -n nvram reset

Post Flashing

Once it finishes rebooting, you can connect to it over a wireless card at IP 192.168.1.1, or if you want to manage it over the ethernet port, you will need to change your IP address again to

IP: 169.254.255.2
Subnet: 255.255.0.0 (System will fill it in for you)

Default Gateway: 169.254.255.1
DNS: 169.254.255.1

Now, you can connect to the DD-WRT web interface by opening a web browser and typing 192.168.1.1. If you want the router to give you an IP address automatically over ethernet, you will need to change the mode of the router. As of right now, they are still working out some of the bugs, but I have gotten the “Client Bridge” mode to work on 3/19/07 firmware, following these instructions.

Also, you need to remember that any time you reset your router by hitting the button on the bottom (or in the firmware), you will need to manually set your IP again to the 169.254.255.2…etc. as above, in order to access it over the Ethernet port (well, until they change the firmware to where it defaults to putting the DHCP server on the ethernet port, if they ever do).

Also, watch the DD-WRT wiki for news about less buggy firmware releases, and make sure to upgrade using the fonera-firmware.bin files through the web gui. Its much easier!

If you are to this point, and your router is not responding, wait 5 minutes, and check your IP settings. If you are still not getting an response, I would recommend the following:

1. Unplug the power from the fonera
2. Make sure you have all the other network connections disabled
3. Set the ip to the 192.168.1.166 with the same options as above.
4. Start the pinging (ping 192.168.1.254 -t)
5. Plug in the power to the router
6. In about 10-50 seconds, you should see a response. If you don’t, wait a little longer and double check your IP settings.
7. If you finally see a response, Start again “Flashing the Firmware,” but unplug the power from the router first, because there is a narrow gap of time that the Redboot option is open.

Access Everywhere: The Definitive Guide to Wi-Fi

2008-07-28T14:12:00.007-04:00

A recent article at PCMAG.com talks about finding wifi hotspots around the world and features hotspot providers like JiWire, AnchorFree, Fon, Whisher, WeFi, and other paid wifi options as well. Happy reading. LINK

Access Everywhere: The Definitive Guide to Wi-Fi

"For the last decade, as wireless networks have grown in popularity, so has the number of hot spots around the globe.

The leading online hot-spot directory, JiWire, lists 215,666 locations as of this writing. Those are just the ones people bother to report. Believe it or not, they're not all in coffee shops—in fact, hotels host the most hot spots, followed by restaurants. With that many venues offering Wi-Fi, it should be easy to find Internet access wherever you go, right? It is, if you know where, and perhaps how, to look. Here are some tips on finding locations, both free and for a fee, unique venues where Wi-Fi may flourish (think: air travel), and how to make your own mobile hot spots on the fly if you've got the equipment, the cash, and the gumption to unwire beyond your home network.

Finding Hot Spots

Finding hot spots is a lot easier if you look before you need one. There are several directories online with hot-spot listings—consult one for where you're going and you can print out a list to take with you.

JiWire is the best hot-spot directory by a large margin, as it's one of the few that actually spent money building a list, and it has full-time employees keeping the directory current. JiWire powers the listings used by several companies, including iPass and Boingo (see "Paid Wi-Fi"). JiWire's hot spots cover 134 countries, and 67,875 of those hot spots, both free and paid, are in the United States.

If you're a serious traveler and use Windows, you could until recently subscribe to JiWire's Hotspot Helper, which provided extra security and privacy at hot spots using a hosted VPN connection and included the entire hot-spot list to carry with you on your laptop. Unfortunately, JiWire's business model over the last year has changed: It now wants to be primarily a provider of advertising at hot spots. The Hotspot Helper is no longer available for new customers, though the company will support existing customers through the end of their contracts. (The online directory is here to stay, of course, since it's how JiWire develops relationships with future advertising customers.) To get that extra layer of security Hotspot Helper used to provide, a good option is WiTopia.net's personalVPN, which secures wireless connections on Vista, XP, and Macintosh for $39.99 per year.

JiWire's Hotspot Finder for Skype also offers search, but it's voice-based—you chat with it as you would with any voice-recognition system on a phone and it'll tell you where hot spots are, listing them by venue type (café or hotel, for example), city name, or ZIP code. It works on any Skype platform, but there's also a downloadable add-on for the Windows XP/Vista Skype client that includes maps. There's a JiWire Hotspot Finder just for the iPhone as well, but it has to be online, at the very least with the AT&T cellular service, to be useful.

AnchorFree also has a directory, specifically of free hot spots. Like JiWire, the company is concentrating on offering ads, but it says its directory is still continually updated, mostly by users. It has 20,000 free hot spots listed worldwide. Hotspotr and WiFinder are both similar, and all depend on a community of users who send in listings.

In an unscientific hot-spot search in Ithaca, New York, AnchorFree showed five free venues, but I know there are at least a dozen. Hotspotr showed none at all, while WiFinder found just one, at a McDonald's (the city has two Golden Arches with hot spots, however). JiWire listed 54 locations, free and paid.

Ultimately, you want access wherever you are at the moment, and the best way to know for sure is to boot up the laptop (or a handheld, like the Nokia N810 or the iPod touch) and see if a network pops up. But the fastest way to make that check is with a Wi-Fi signal finder. These handheld units can, with the push of a button, tell you if there's a signal in your area and provide an idea of how strong it is.

The cheapest signal finders do this with a row of LEDs—the more that light up, the stronger the signal—and provide no other details. The best signal finders do much more, using an LCD screen to display info on multiple networks, including whether the signal you've found is 802.11b, 11g, or 11n; the name of the network; the strength of the signal; and even what kind of encryption it uses (WEP, WPA, or WPA2). If the network is listed as "open" you can usually sign on—just be sure you're welcome (see "Free Wi-Fi," below). The best of these high-end signal locators is the Digital Hotspotter HS20, which sells for $59.95.

Free Wi-Fi

If you're in a major city and you can't find free Wi-Fi–even the legal kind!—you're not trying very hard. Wander about with a signal finder in your hands and you'll probably see plenty of networks both secure (locked) and not.

When you do find a network that's open, keep in mind that piggybacking on someone's Wi-Fi network without permission can get you into trouble—even if the network in question is meant to be used for free. On at least two occasions, people have been arrested for using the Wi-Fi offered by coffee shops. The problem is, they used it while sitting in a parked car. The charge in one case was "theft of services." Why? Because the owner of the shop provides the network for customers only, and the man with the laptop never even talked to a barista, let alone bought a coffee. In another incident, it was Michigan's "fraudulent access to computers, computer systems, and computer networks" law—and in that case the network owner didn't even know the guy was using his network. A cop saw the guy Googling in his car and got suspicious.

So, seriously, stay above board. There's plenty of free Wi-Fi out there to pick from. And it wouldn't hurt the cheapskates among us to buy a pastry now and then from the shop providing the access.

Some national café chains, such as Caribou Coffee and Panera Bread, go out of their way to offer free Wi-Fi; those two alone account for 1,172 locations in the U.S. (according to a JiWire search). Add all those local non-chain cafés and you'll be hard put to buy a latte without finding a Wi-Fi signal.

Other primo locations for free Wi-Fi in a pinch include public libraries and hotel lobbies. Even hotels that charge guests for access in the rooms often give it away in common areas, sometimes by the pool if you're lucky—and willing to risk a wet laptop.

Wi-Fi Sharing

You may also see some benefit from joining a Wi-Fi sharing service. That means you set up your own home network to give access to others, and in return you can expect access through a virtual network (virtual since the company doesn't actually operate or install any of the equipment).

Fon is the best-known Wi-Fi sharing network. Buy its specialized router for your home network, called La Fonera, to get both secure access for your family and open access for other Fon members (Foneros). You can charge non-Fon users for access and split the revenue with Fon, 50-50. If you don't become a Fonero, you can pay to use the network; getting to Gmail and Google Maps is free, however.

Those shared Fon Spots make up 27,868 of the locations in JiWire's worldwide database, by the way. This makes them the number three ranked location type available, even over cafés (25,861). There are almost 5,000 Fon Spots in the U.S. alone, according to JiWire; only Germany and France have more, but again, that's only the members who register with JiWire. Fon itself says there are well over 100,000 FON community members in North America, mostly in the U.S., sharing broadband.

If you don't want a new router, try the software approach. Whisher wants to build a network of shared hot spots similar to Fon, but it doesn't require special hardware. You register your home network as a Whisher hot spot, and using special client software (for Windows XP, Mac OS X, or Nokia S60 phones) you can get access to other Whisher hot spots. Whisher also lets you buy credits, called WiFi Out, that can be used at some commercial hot spots for pay-as-you-go access.

WeFi also wants to make a virtual global network of all the Wi-Fi you can find. Literally. Download the Windows XP or Windows Mobile software and it takes over management of Wi-Fi connections. If a hot spot in the area is part of WeFi's database, it can connect you automatically. If it finds hot spots that aren't in the database—your own home network, for example—you simply add them. You can even share your security passwords with others who have the WeFi software, to access one another's networks even if the security is on. The software tracks all the locations on Google Maps. The "buddies" feature lets you see other WeFi users in your vicinity, so you can send an instant message and wave at them from across the café.

Paid Wi-Fi

Free Wi-Fi's biggest downfall is that you can't count on it. It's hard to complain about the shoddy quality of something you weren't paying for, after all (not that it stops us). To avoid the problems of weak free service, pony up. There are three ways to go: pay for it as you need it (pay-as-you-go), subscribe to a service with a hot-spot provider to use its hot spots anytime you want, or subscribe through an aggregator of hot-spot providers.

There are several restaurant, café, and retail chains that provide paid Wi-Fi in all their national (and sometimes international) locations. Here's a quick list for the U.S., with providers' names in parentheses:

Barnes & Noble (AT&T)
Borders Books and Music (T-Mobile)
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (AT&T)
FedEx Kinkos (T-Mobile)
IHOP (Wayport)
McDonald's (Wayport)
Starbucks Coffee (T-Mobile, in process of converting to AT&T)
UPS Store (AT&T)

AT&T is now the largest provider of hot spots in the U.S., with 17,000 locations. It charges $3.99 to $7.99 per "session" (the price and length of a session varies with the venue) or you can pay $19.99 per month to access all those locations for as long as you want. If you're already a home user of AT&T's 1.5-megabit-per-second (Mbps) DSL or the U-Verse fiber-to-the-premises service, you can enjoy unlimited free access at any AT&T hot spot.

These prices don't mean as much with AT&T's newest partner. Starbucks has taken a lot more interest in and control of how its provider hands out Wi-Fi, no doubt a response to the many neighborhood coffeehouses that give it away. The caffeine conglomerate still cares mainly about coffee but recognizes that a taste of "free" Wi-Fi can bring in those latte drinkers. The new plan under AT&T: Anyone with a Starbucks Card making a $5 minimum purchase (or putting more money on a card) just once every 60 days gets free access for 2 hours per day. (Under T-Mobile's control, Wi-Fi access at Starbucks cost $6 per hour or $10 for 24 hours, on top of your Grande Java Chip Frappuccino.)

McDonald's networks are powered by Wayport. A few select devices—specifically the Sony Mylo COM-2 and the Zipit Wireless Messenger Z2—get totally free access at the company's hot spots. Using any other device, such as a laptop or phone, means paying. Access in the fast-food joint costs $2.95 for 2 hours, and you pay at the counter when you buy your fries and McNuggets; the cashier will give you a code to enter when you boot up your Wi-Fi device. There is also the option of paying $29.95 a month (with a one-year agreement; the cost is $49.95 if you want to go month-to-month) direct to Wayport to get access to all its hot spots and wired connections in hotels. The better way to go is to subscribe with a Wayport partner—which is just about everyone, from AT&T to Boingo to iPass.

Aggregators

A true power user of hot spots, a road warrior who travels the open highways and skyways and is constantly in need of affordable-yet-reliable Wi-Fi, should go with a hot-spot aggregator. Aggregation means the provider has a virtual network: It doesn't run its own physical network but makes it easy to access hot spots run by partners. There are two aggregators to choose from in the U.S., and both offer software that makes it easy to link up.

Boingo Wireless costs $21.95 a month and provides unlimited access to 20,000 hot spots across North America. If you want to go international, you can pay $39 a month to get access at 100,000 hot spots. Boingo offers a pay-as-you-go account for $7.95 a day in the U.S., or $9.95 a day when overseas. It's cheaper for those who need access just for phones or PDAs to use Wi-Fi with Boingo Mobile, at $7.95 per month worldwide. That plan works with Windows Mobile devices and some Nokia devices, including the N800 and N810 handhelds. Boingo even has new deals with hotel network providers such as Wayport and iBahn to provide access over Ethernet. Subscribers can also roam onto the thousands of Fon community hot spots worldwide.

There's a new aggregator for consumers: iPassConnect Mobility Service. It offers almost exactly the same service that iPass has sold to corporations for years, but now anyone can sign up. Compared with Boingo, it's more expensive ($29.95 a month for North American hot spots), but iPass has more of them (24,000). The cost goes up $20 to use overseas hot spots with iPass. Both those prices include non–Wi-Fi methods of access, specifically Ethernet in hotels, but also dial-up.

Of course, the aggregators have most of the same partners—both include Starbucks and McDonald's, for example—through partnerships with AT&T and Wayport (in fact, Wayport is a partner of AT&T, and manages most of its hot spots!).

Lest you still believe Wi-Fi is only for coffee drinkers and hotel guests, consider all the other areas where a hot spot can be found. If there's a place where people on the road have to sit for more than 15 minutes, there's a good chance Wi-Fi is available.

Airports and Airplanes

Layovers on plane trips mean plenty of passengers sitting and waiting in the airport. Then waiting some more. Business travelers-and Internet addicts traveling for whatever reason-prefer not to waste those precious moments, which could be used for answering e-mail or visiting Second Life. Boingo says figures based on overall usage show that, by a long mile, airports are the number one place its customer get access. (Hotels are a distant second; cafés and restaurants an even more distant third.)

Wi-Fi for airline passengers began in the lounges run by the airlines. Most used to charge a bundle for the privilege (on top of the fee just to get into the lounge), but both American and United have started a new trend: offering Wi-Fi to their frequent fliers, who have certainly suffered enough, as a free amenity.

Wireless soon expanded into entire concourses, with companies like Concourse Communications (a division of Boingo) offering service at almost every gate in select airports. TravelPost.com keeps a nice Airport Wireless Internet Access Guide on its site, including color codes to show locations with free Wi-Fi. The list was most recently updated in December of 2007, however, and that might be the biggest rub-airports change plans as often as cheap travelers change planes. So keep that signal finder handy.

Again, almost all of these locations are available at no extra cost if you've got an account with Boingo or iPass. Even in places where aggregators don't have network partners, many airports offer neutral host roaming. That means a provider's competitors can offer services in its airports as long as the two can work out a deal. It's how Boingo can offer access at airport networks run by T-Mobile (including LAX, DFW, and SFO), even though T-Mobile is not a Boingo partner. Some providers, like Concourse and Wayport, are neutral hosts as part of their corporate philosophy.

The top five major U.S. airports with free Wi-Fi, in case you're interested, are Denver, Las Vegas, Orlando, Phoenix-Sky Harbor, and Philadelphia (which is free only on weekends, unless you're a student). Some, like Hartsfield in Atlanta, have so many paid providers that you can pick and choose. A list of just about every airport in the U.S., large or small, with free Wi-Fi can be found at OpenWiFiSpots. Compare that with the similar list at Wi-Fi FreeSpot and you'll have the full Wi-Fi picture.

Speaking of free, starting this month, anyone with an iPhone or iPod touch can get free access to any of the 28 airport hot spots operated by Concourse Communications for 15 minutes after watching a 15-second video advertisement. If you watching another ad every 15 minutes you can continue at no charge for an hour.

The holy grail for the true connected traveler or Internet addict is a hot spot on the plane. It's happened overseas to a degree, but not here in the U.S. That will soon change, maybe for all the airlines, if the trials are successful. A company named Aircell has installed a series of air-to-ground (ATG) network stations around the country to power a service called Gogo. The network connects planes in flight to the Internet, via towers on the ground.

American Airlines began testing Gogo in June of this year on flights between New York's JFK and Los Angeles. Flights from New York to San Francisco and Miami will get access soon, though it will be limited to the big Boeing 767-200 planes to start. The price is $12.95 for flights over 3 hours long or $9.95 for under 3 hours. Passengers can use it for unfiltered Web surfing and e-mail, but not VoIP. Virgin Airlines will be offering Gogo service at some point later this year on all jets. iPass already has a deal in place with Gogo, so those with iPassConnect Mobile accounts won't have to pay extra.

JetBlue is also actively testing its own ATG network on a single plane, called the BetaBlue. Anyone onboard with a Wi-Fi laptop can use Yahoo! e-mail and send instant messages, and BlackBerry users can get e-mail and services. BetaBlue doesn't offer full Web access yet, however.

RV Parks/Marinas

Roaming the country in a recreational vehicle—or even just driving from campground to campground—doesn't mean complete disconnection. The folks at WirelessTrips.com have put together a hot spot finder of "RV-friendly" locations around the country, including campgrounds, rest stops, and truck stops, served up on a Google map. JiWire has similar listings; its list of RV parks alone has 454 entries. Prices vary from free to excessive. LinkSpot is one provider in several parks. It charges $9.95 a day, $29.95 a week, or $49.95 a month.

Generally, you're not going to find much in the way of Wi-Fi on the open seas, but marinas where you dock your boat may offer it. After all, if you can afford a boat, what's a few bucks for some Internet-laden radio signals? California is rich in marinas like the San Francisco Yacht Club, where service from iDock costs $9.95 a day on up to $49.95 a month.

Stadiums

JiWire shows 60 "sports venues" in its database. Most are little—local ice rinks or bowling alleys—but Wi-Fi in such places is nothing to sneeze at if you have to wait around for a junior hockey player or your spouse on bowling night. Spend that time online.

Many major sports venues offer Wi-Fi as well, usually in the expensive seats. But Minute Maid Park in Houston has Wi-Fi throughout the stadium, priced at $3.95 for 4 hours' use during a game. Naturally, AT&T operates the Wi-Fi at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants; access to the Internet, as well as to the Giants Digital Dugout software for extra stats and replays, is free. Wi-Fi is also reportedly going to be available in Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, where the Colts play their first game later this year. So before you head out for the game, check the Web site for the stadium you're visiting. It might have details on wireless Internet you can access during the seventh inning stretch.

Commuting

Wi-Fi on a plane is great, but most people spend more time every day going back and forth to work on trains or ferries. Wireless on trains has gone through ups and downs in the U.S. In fact, many promising projects, most in California, have died off. The reason: It's hard to find a good way to provide effective backhaul-the connection back to the Internet-on a vehicle moving that rapidly and from place to place. At least on a highway, with a 3G card, you're usually near the cellular towers with the equipment, but that's not always true when you're riding the rails.

One recently announced solution involves using Sprint's EV-DO network as backhaul for a Wi-Fi access point on the MBTA commuter line from Worcester to Framingham in Massachusetts. The free trial launched on one train in January and could eventually expand to all 13 commuter lines in the state.

There's still a chance that access could come to the California Capitol Corridor train, which travels between San Jose and Sacramento. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) may be signing a contract with a company called WiFi Rail as early as this month to provide on-train Wi-Fi to thousands of Bay Area commuters. WiFi Rail has already successfully tested its service, which uses something called "leaky coax" to get backhaul. The service involves a coaxial cable along the rails that works like an antenna, even if the train is traveling at 65 miles per hour. So there's hope for train-Fi yet, in California and beyond.

Of course, train stations are another matter: Finding a signal when you're waiting for your train to show up is a little easier. T-Mobile offers hot-spot service at Amtrak stations along the Eastern Seaboard. Up north, VIA Rail, Canada's national passenger rail service, has Wi-Fi at its stations for cross-country travelers moving between Toronto and Vancouver. Anyone taking the three-day cross-country trip can get online at least once a day. VIA's Windsor to Quebec City corridor also has Wi-Fi at stations, and on some of the cars.

Ferries have many of the same problems with backhaul that trains have (and it would be nice to think those problems could be solved with the same technology now going into airplanes). The Washington State Ferries in the Seattle area-which account for 50 percent of all the ferry trips in the U.S. based on the sheer number of passengers-have been trying Wi-Fi on boats for a while now. Most of the ferry service's water routes went online last year. It costs from $3.95 for 2 hours up to $29.95 a month for unlimited use. Because the Wi-Fi provider, Parsons, has a roaming agreement with Boingo and iPass, subscribers of either aggregator can get access to the network during their commute and to hundreds of other hot spots in the city (all those Starbucks!), all for the same subscription price. And the MBTA in Boston recently announced comprehensive Wi-Fi access on all 11 ferries in the harbor. Last year, the service ferried around nearly 1.5 million riders.

Municipalities

We live in a wireless utopia of citywide networks these days. It's true! Sorta.

Wi-Fi was supposed to be the great backbone of this Internet access wonderland, because of its ubiquity in laptops and inexpensive equipment that was easy to install-not overpriced 3G. It didn't work out that way. 3G technologies like EV-DO and HSDPA are readily available, and so-called "4G," like WiMAX, may soon be in many more places thanks to the new, improved Clearwire, backed by Sprint's, Google's, and Intel's deep pockets.

So where does that leave citywide Wi-Fi?

Whatever you call it—muni-fi, city-fi, and hot zones are past favorites—there's no getting past the fact that citywide Wi-Fi went swiftly from promising to disappointing. Bad planning and bad business practices by both cities and providers have led to some networks that barely worked under the demand, and, at the other extreme, over-installed networks with no customers. Sadly, If you build it, they will come only works for mystic baseball diamonds in cornfields.

The situation typically went like this: Cities would plan to work with Wi-Fi providers, giving them access to places to put equipment (like light poles) in exchange for use of the network. Companies originally entered these public/private partnerships assuming that paid users and advertising would be enough to keep their networks afloat. They came to the conclusion (late) that a network could not succeed financially unless the city served as an anchor tenant -using the network for services like public safety or meter reading, and paying for the privilege. The cities, of course, preferred not paying. Now they may have to pay... to buy the networks.

Many companies, EarthLink most prominently, bet the farm on muni-fi. In February, the beleaguered ISP put all its municipal holdings up for sale. In some cases, the cities themselves are poised to take over what EarthLink installed. According to MuniWireless.com, a site that tracks muni-fi exclusively, Corpus Christi, Texas, may do just that. Same for Milpitas, California. Philadelphia, once the poster child for muni-fi (even before a single access point was installed) has stated it has no intention of keeping EarthLink's network up and running.

MetroFi was another citywide Wi-Fi provider, building networks throughout Silicon Valley, a couple in Illinois, and the big one, in Portland, Oregon. The company's troubles began last year when contract talks with Anchorage, Alaska, and Toledo, Ohio, failed. MetroFi was among the first to believe advertising revenue would be enough to make money. It wasn't. As of May 15, the company planned to sell all of its networks. In areas lacking buyers, those networks will be shut down. In late June, Portland went dark.

Cities like Tempe, Arizona, were among the first to get a big Wi-Fi network, but control of Tempe's network has passed from company to company—and as of today it has been shut down, too.

Of course, not all hot zones are a bust. The IT department of Minneapolis, Minnesota, working with USI Wireless, has unwired 85 percent of the city and has around 8,000 paid customers in homes, with free access in city libraries. Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, Calilfornia; and Austin, Texas, as well as other cities, still have great volunteer community groups trying to offer Wi-Fi in a big way, without any municipal money or involvement. The volunteer groups probably prefer doing it on their own.

Private companies could still accomplish a lot: In May, Cablevision announced it would spend $350 million to install Wi-Fi in areas of New York City, which its 3.1 million Optimum Online cable subscribers wouldn't have to pay extra for; others would. Of course, Verizon tried this before in New York-by turning pay phones into Wi-Fi access points-and failed. It's hard to unwire the concrete canyons.

What does all this mean for your own online excursions? You can't always count on citywide Wi-Fi to be where you're going. Even in cities with well-trumpeted networks like Philly and Portland, there's no guarantee of availability from one day to the next. Big cities like New York, Chicago, and Boston have all talked about it, but though there is city-provided Wi-Fi in select neighborhoods and parks, there is nothing even close to citywide service. (Some cities do have wireless networks for use by municipal employees, such as with automated meter reading and Chicago's backbone for surveillance cameras.)

As long as 3G grows and gets faster, the need for citywide Wi-Fi continues to diminish. WiMAX may replace 3G eventually, though it's barely off the ground here in the States. For now, if you move from city to city with a single laptop, count on the known hot spots or invest in a 3G card from a wireless carrier with a big 3G network, like Verizon or Sprint.

3G/Cellular Routers

It's no secret that you can get Internet access just about anywhere-even in the car-if you've got 3G service. When you plug a PC Card modem into your laptop you can expect reasonably good speed as long as you're in range of a tower with the latest technology, such as EV-DO Rev A. Move out of range of those towers and you may still get access at lower speeds. These services typically cost $60 to $80 a month.

That's not much help if you've got multiple laptops that need access. The solution: a router that uses the 3G card for backhaul. This could work even in a car or on a train to make your own truly mobile hot spot. You just need to provide power to the router.

The Junxion Box was one of the first and biggest names in 3G routers (the crew for The Sopranos used the gizmos when on location in New Jersey). Plug in a supported 3G card from Alltel, AT&T, Sprint, or Verizon to get backhaul and then use the built-in 802.11g Wi-Fi or Ethernet to connect the computers. But it's not cheap, at $699. For a hundred bucks less Junxion offers a version with Ethernet only.

The pyramid-shaped Top Global 3G Phoebus MB6000 EVDO Router ($210) got a four-star rating when we reviewed it a couple of years ago. It can access multiple cellular networks-EV-DO, EDGE, and UMTS-so it supports just about every cellular provider in the United States. D-Link offers a couple of devices as well, such as the EV-DO-only DIR-450 ($209.99 direct). It's limited to specific EV-DO CardBus cards, however, most old enough not to support the newer, faster Rev A standard (the DIR-450 has been around since 2005). For sharing, however, it's hard to beat it. D-Link also makes the DIR-451, which supports the UMTS/HSDPA-based 3G network offered by AT&T.

Phone maker Kyocera, which recently merged with Sanyo, sells the similar KR1 Mobile Router for EV-DO for $169.99-similar because it's powered by D-Link. The KR1 is available through Amazon. Linksys also makes 3G routers, like the WRT54G3G line for mobile broadband. There are separate versions for AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon Wireless customers.

Laptops as Hot Spots

If several people with laptops find themselves in a place that has a single Ethernet connection for Internet access, one of them can turn his or her laptop into the hub of a wireless ad hoc (computer-to-computer) network. The computer in question must be able to run both Ethernet and Wi-Fi at the same time. In Windows Vista, connect to the Internet using an Ethernet cable, then go into the Network and Sharing Center. Set up a new connection called a wireless ad hoc network. Ad hoc means your computer can connect directly to other computers in range over Wi-Fi. Give this ad hoc network connection a name, set up your security options, deselect "Save this network," and then click "Turn on Internet connection sharing." Anyone who connects to you will need the security password you put in. If you don't supply a password, anyone can connect to your laptop's Wi-Fi.

Windows XP requires you to adjust a lot more settings. First, make sure your Ethernet is plugged in and providing Internet access. Go into the Network Connections control panel, right-click on your wireless connection, and select Properties from the menu. On the Wireless Networks tab, check "Use Windows to configure my wireless network setting." On the same tab, under Preferred networks, click "Add," then name your network, select Shared, and provide a security encryption password (you'll need to enter it twice). Click OK.

The network name should now be in the list. But you're not done yet.

Click the Advanced button and select "Computer-to-Computer (ad hoc) networks only"—otherwise your laptop may try to connect to another hot spot, rather than just letting other laptops connect to it. Click OK. Still not done: Back in the Network Connections control panel, open the Properties dialog for your wired connection, the one that's providing that Internet access. Go to the Advanced menu and check the box next to "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection." Don't click the other box here.

On the Mac OS, you can do the same thing. Go into Sharing under System Preferences, click Internet, and in the "Share your connection from" menu, chose "Built-in Ethernet." In the box below, select AirPort (Apple's default term for all things Wi-Fi/802.11 related) as the method you'll use for sharing. Click AirPort Options to set the name and security password. You need to click Start when done to get the ad hoc connections rolling. If you're wondering whether hackers might try to get you at hot spots, ad hoc is how they'll do it. The bad guys set up a PC-to-PC network without encryption and just wait for you to connect. It's important to link only to networks you're sure you can trust. Double-check a network's name next time you're using a hot spot, just to be sure.

Mobile Phones as Hot Spots

It's nothing new to use a mobile phone as a modem, connecting a single laptop to the Internet. Here are some examples of how to do that with AT&T (formerly Cingular) phones, T-Mobile phones, and Verizon phones). New software announced just this year promises to turn smart phones with integrated Wi-Fi into hot spots as well, suitable for getting several laptops online. They're still nascent, however, so don't make this your go-to solution just yet.

WMWifiRouter from Morose Media in the Netherlands is still in trials, and during the trial it costs only 14.99 euros for the full version. But there's a free version anyone can try. You'll need a phone with Windows Mobile 5 or 6, both Wi-Fi and a cellular data connection, Internet Sharing installed, and 15MB of free memory. Morose has a list of compatible phones on its site.

Back here in the States, TapRoot Systems is offering WalkingHotSpot to do the same thing (says our own Smart Device Central). WalkingHotSpot started on Windows Mobile, and it's now available for Symbian-based phones as well. The software can limit the number of connections made via Wi-Fi, so your phone provider won't plotz at your excessive network use. Sprint is currently the only provider of 3G Internet connections that is okay with having its devices used as hot spots. A free trial of Walking HotSpot has recently arrived, so get it while you can. Eventually, TapRoot says, it will offer the software only through carrier partnerships.

Panasonic's new Skype Phone not available in US

2008-07-23T13:30:00.000-04:00

I made a post back in March about the Panasonic KX-WP800 and how it is "Fon Friendly," But from what I read on the internet, it was supposed to be available in the United States in May. Well now it is July and I decieded to email Panasonic myself to find out more about the phone. Here are the two responses to my questions.

******************************************************************

Thank you for your interest in Panasonic products.

The KXWP1050 unit is a WI-FI phone for Skype that is available in the
United States. To obtain additional information about the recommended
product and other Panasonic telephone products, you can visit this site:

http://www.panasonic.com

We cannot guarantee that a dealer is carrying the product you are
requesting. However, we have provided dealers in your area where you can
check for the product.

OFFICE DEPOT ***-***-****

STAPLES ***-***-****

You may also contact the support line for the Panasonic online store by
calling (800)-405-0652 or you may send your message to:

CustomerService@direct.us.panasonic.com

We hope this information is helpful to you

Thank You,
Panasonic Consumer Support

*******************************************************************

Thank you for your response.

The KXWP800 unit is not available in the United States.

We hope this information is useful to you.

Thank You,
Panasonic Consumer Support

The ZON@FON WiFi Community in Portugal

2008-07-21T11:03:00.003-04:00

Looks like Fon is at it again by teaming up with another established Wifi network. (I highlighted some on the interesting points below). It will be interesting to see how this partnership turns out and IF we will ever find out if Fon's number of anticipated hotspots through this partnership becomes a reality.

"Rodrigo Costa, CEO of ZON Multimédia, and Martin Varsavsky, Founder and CEO of FON announced today the launch of ZON@FON Free WiFi Community, a free WiFi service that will allow ZON Netcabo’s 400.000 customers to be part of the world’s largest WiFi Community.

The service is based on the revolutionary idea of a massive WiFi network, built through the contribution of individual customers to allow everyone, everywhere free access to the Internet.

From launch, ZON@FON will be Portugal’s largest WiFi network, with over 2.500 hotspots and part of the world’s largest wireless community, with over 250.000 hotspots worldwide.

The goal of the partnership is to dramatically increase the number of hotspots in the country, and contribute to the overall growth of the FON global community.

ZON@FON aims to have over 100.000 hotspots in Portugal, providing nearly ubiquitous connectivity to the Internet, further strengthening the offer of Zon Netcabo, Portugal’s broadband pioneer and innovation leader.

Anyone who uses a ZON@FON compatible router will host a hotspot that is based in a separate, secure channel, independent from their personal WiFi network.

ZON Netcabo will deploy access equipment with embedded ZON@FON functionality that will allow customers to host their own hotspot at no additional cost.

The internet connection provided by ZON Netcabo will carry all the hotspot’s traffic, but it will be separate from the user’s traffic and will not reduce the bandwidth from his internet access. This innovation was possible thanks to the superior speed and flexibility that cable networks offer, and was developed by FON and ZON exclusively for the ZON@FON Free WiFi Community.

The ZON@FON Free Internet Community will boost the usage of a whole new generation of devices, including: game consoles, GPS’s, cellular phones, PDA’s, I-Phones, in addition to traditional laptop computers.

About ZON Multimedia
With over 1,5 million TV, 400 thousand broadband and 200 thousand fixed line customers ZON Multimedia is Portugal’s leading provider of triple play offers. Originally a cable TV operator, ZON now offers multiple services across several platforms: cable, satellite, adsl and is now launching a Mobile Virtual Network Operator. Additionally, ZON is Portugal leading content distribution and cinema exhibition company, though its ZON Lusomundo business.

For more information, visit ZON at http://www.zon.pt

About FON
FON is the world’s largest WiFi community. FON’s mission is to stimulate the growth of WiFi around the world by creating a global community of “Foneros”. FON’s La Fonera routers have been designed to enable Foneros to share their home Internet access in a completely secure manner. Founded in February 2006 in Madrid, Spain, FON investors include Google, Skype, British Telecom, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Coral Capital Management and Excite Japan. Currently FON has close to 1 Million registered members in Europe, Asia and America.
For more information, visit FON at http://www.fon.com"

The usual links:

Martin's Blog: "Fon and Zon launch the ZON@FON WiFi Community in Portugal"

Fon Blog: "NEW ZON@FON FREE WiFi COMMUNITY AIMS TO COVER PORTUGAL WITH 100.000 FREE HOTSPOTS"

Fon Boards: "Fon & Zon, new partnership in Portugal (Press Release)"

Fon Wiki Beta and BT Fon Facebook App

2008-07-18T13:52:00.000-04:00

Fon has officially launched a beta version of its wiki, you can check it out at http://wiki.fon.com and for any feedback or etc. send an email to wiki@fon.com

"The BT FON Facebook application, called Battle of The Fans, is doing very well and is now one of the most popular UK focused applications, with over 31,000 users and more then 7,000 waves generated. It’s part of a very successful marketing campaign that started with The World’s Biggest Mexican Wave initiative."

Martin's Blog: "The BT FON Facebook application is one of the most popular in the UK"

La Fonera Temporarily Sold Out and new FGF Promo

2008-07-12T17:45:00.003-04:00

Head on over to the Fon Shop and you be surprised to find out that the La Fonera is temporarily sold out, possibly until the end of summer (for people in the UK at least). This could be very bad for a lot of people looking to get a cheap router through Fonero gets Fonero and for Fon. Now they must push the sales of the horribly over priced and under featured Fonera+. On the other hand we may see an increase in sales of Foneras on Ebay. I have been keeping track of all routers (well almost, but not quite, at least the ones sold shipping to the US) sold on ebay since approximately last October. Hopefully I will have a chance to compile all of the data and release it soon. Currently there has been a dramatic decrease in sales of Foneras on ebay (both acutal product and FGF invites). On the German Fon blog, they claim that we could see an increase in price of Foneras on ebay, beats me though, I'll have to check it out and keep an eye on it.

Now there is a new Fonero gets Fonero promotion going on. You can get the La Fonera + for only $19.95 plus $10.00 shipping. The La Fonera + runs $49.95 regular price.

Linkage:

https://www.fon.com/en/landing/FGF

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4313

http://blog.fon.com/de/archive/general/fonshop-keine-la-fonera-classic-mehr.html

Fon Tips and Tricks Part 2: Using OpenDNS

2008-07-10T20:31:00.002-04:00

Welcome to Fon Tips and Tricks Part 2 using OpenDNS.

OpenDNS is great if you are worried about unwanted activity happening on your internet connection (i.e inappropriate websites). OpenDNS provides Content Filtering, Adult Site Blocking, Domain Blocking Domain, Whitelist, and Phishing Protection.

Content filtering is what we will be taking advantage of here. "OpenDNS offers comprehensive Web content filtering across more than 30 categories as a service for your network. Whether you need to limit access to social networking websites, block video sharing sites, stop P2P networking or stop dozens of categories, OpenDNS content filtering gives you a comprehensive, easy-to-use filtering service, for free." There are more than 30 categories that you can chose to block. Adware, Alcohol, Auctions, Automotive, Blogs, Business Services, Chat, Classifieds, Dating, Drugs, Ecommerce/Shopping, Educational Institutions, File storage, Financial, institutions, Forums/Message boards, Gambling Games, Government, Hate/Discrimination, Health, Humor, Instant messaging, Jobs/Employment, Movies, Music, News/Media, Non-profits, P2P/File sharing, Parked Domains, Photo sharing, Podcasts, Politics, Portals, Radio, Religious, Research/Reference, Search engines, Social networking, Software/Technology, Sports, Television, Travel, Video sharing, Visual search engines, Weapons, and Webmail.

My best suggestion is to turn some on and some off and try different websites to make sure that "clean" sites are not being blocked. You can also choose to block ("domain blocking") or allow ("whitelist") specific sites.

How to do it:

go to www.opendns.com and click on "create a few account."
Fill in the necessary info to register and confirm the account.
Log into the onboard administration of your Fonera and change the DNS servers to
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Click on "Dashboard" at the top.
Click on "Networks" and then add a new network that your Fonera is on.
Then Click on "Settings" and then "Block Categories."
Choose the categories you want to block and then test different websites that you/others may commonly visit to ensure that OpenDNS is not blocking too much or not blocking enough.

OpenDNS.com

OpenDNS Features

OpenDNS Content Filtering

Fon Tips and Tricks Part 1: Configuring La Fonera without WiFi

2008-07-04T12:43:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first (of hopefully quite a few) tips and tricks to help you out as a Fonero.

Today we will learn how to configure your Fonera without using wireless instead we will configure it over the ethernet cable. Now in order to register your Fonera you still will need a PC with a wireless adapter. To access the onboard administration for your Fonera you would normally connect to the MyPlace (private) signal and then open up an internet browser and type in http://192.168.10.1 But sometimes due to encryption issues you will not be able to connect this way.

1) Instead you must connect your Fonera directly to your PC with an ethernet cable (plug the ethernet cable into the WAN jack of the Fonera and the other end of the cable into your PC's ethernet port).

2) Now go to the Control Panel and then click on Network Connections. Then double click the Local Area Connection icon to show the connection’s Status dialog box. Then, click the Properties button.

3) Double click Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). Click the Use the following IP address option button and type:
a. IP address: 169.254.255.2
b. Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
c. Default gateway: (leave blank)
d. Preferred DNS server: (leave blank)
e. Alternate DNS server: (leave blank)

4) Finally open up your internet browser and type in http://169.254.255.1

5) Configure your Fonera as you normally would, disconnect it from your computer and then connect it as you normally would (to your cable/DSL Modem or router or whatever).

Thats pretty much all there is to it and here is a few pictures to see how it is done:

Links:

El Fon Blog: "Administering La Fonera 1.0 Without Wifi"

Fon Knowledge Base: "Can I connect to La Fonera using a network cable (even if I don’t have a WiFi device)?"

Updated Fonspot Login Portal Still Stinks

2008-07-01T22:51:00.003-04:00

Well It looks like Fon updated the login portal once again and to my surprise (note the sarcasm) it still sucks. Yea it looks totally different, but Fon still retains the original "personalization" options or lack of options for the matter of the fact. The portal is very simple (in other words boring). Fon now shows a few disclaimers as well.

"Disclaimer: FON is not responsible for any content that a Fonero may have personalized on his/her individual FON Spot. If you detect any messages or website at the FON Spot that you believe to be inappropriate for our Community, please notify us at info@fon.com

©FON"

"FON shall guarantee that the authentication services it provides shall be available 80% of the time during any 24 hour period. If the process of authentication is interrupted, FON shall refund the Alien for the non usage of the daily FON Pass."

https://www.fon.com/login/gateway/

https://www.fon.com/images/media/en/en_Code_of_conduct_UK.pdf

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4293

http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/general/new-login-portal.html

Photos of the Fonspot portal as it has changed over the years.

Is Fon cheating Bills out of money?

2008-06-26T21:02:00.003-04:00

As far as bills are concerned they receive 50% of the of the money made from aliens buying passes on their hot spot. Heres a quote from Fons website:

"Make Money with your WiFi

Foneros can now both connect for free and make a little money by participating in the FON Community. It’s easy. Every time a visitor (non-Fonero) detects your WiFi signal there’s a good chance you can make a bit of “dinero”.

FON will pay you 50% of the net revenue that we get every time a visitor purchases a FON Access Pass through your FON Spot! There’s more. To help you promote your FON Spot, visitors can get 15 minutes of free access to trial the service before start purchasing FON Access passes from you! And we even pay you for this!

FON also gives you the option to personalize your FON Spot and maximize your coverage up to 5 times with our long range antenna, the La Fontenna.

Want to help build a WiFi planet and make a little money while doing it?

There are three easy steps to start making some money with the FON Community (at FON we call this type of user “Bill”):

Join FON
Get La Fonera
Become a Bill in your Userzone and enter your PayPal Account to get paid.

Already a Fonero but not making money yet? Change your profile to “Bill” and see how much money you’re making in your User Zone. Remember, Foneros can now do both: roam for free and make some money!"

From http://www.fon.com/en/info/makeMoney

Now, a member on the Fon boards posted what he made and then El Fon Blog took the time to analyze how much the poster made, how much Fon took, and how much is given to paypal, taxes, etc. Now this person (from the UK) ended up making only 36% instead of the 50% that they should have. Unfortunately there is still is a bunch of missing information and stuff that Fon will never disclose.

(source: El Fon Blog)

I have made a whopping $1.50 in the past year (never paid and I probably will never see the money any time soon) and as far as I am concerned Fon will never be profitable for me (as well as many other Foneros I imagine). Since I do not know too much about this whole situation I encourage people who have information about this topic please bring in forward on the Boards so we can crack down on Fon's shenanigans. Like always check out the links below and spread the word.

Fon boards: "Why is there a huge $30 limit to payout?"

El Fon Blog: "Fon does not split money 50/50"

Change of FON_AP to FON_FREE_INTERNET

2008-06-19T13:29:00.000-04:00

"Thanks to feedback from some of our top Foneros we've learned that changing the FON_AP to a more attractive name significantly improved the number of visits. Based on this information we decided to change all FON Spots (public) signal names that weren't already modified by their owners.

How does this affect me?

This doesn't affect you. Your FON Spot visitors will now see this new signal name but nothing else has changed. Hopefully, youll even see an increase of visits! If you like, you can still the name to 'FON_nameyouwant', but we recommend that you to keep this new name or something similar. Instructions for changing the name are below.

How can I change the signal name?

There are two options
Option 1

1. Connect to the MyPlace? signal. 2. Open your browser and type http://192.168.10.1 and the console will be loaded. The standard user name and password are both the word "admin". 3. Click on "Public WiFi?" in the menu and then you can change the name behind the 'FON_'. Save your changes and the signal name will change. Perhaps you will have to wait a bit and/or refresh the WiFi? manager of your device to see the new signal name.

Option 2

1. Log into your My FON user area at fon.com with your FON username (email-address/password). 2. Then go to "Configure your FON Router" and in the Settings tab enter a new "Public Signal" 3. Save the FON Spot personalization.

Changes may take up to 30 minutes to take effect on your FON Spot. If you want the change to happen immediately, reboot you La Fonera."

Now, I think this is the stupidest thing in the entire world that Fon could possibly be doing (although I could be wrong here. . . yeah. . .) I know this is only a default setting, and most people will be changing the name of the public signal anyway, but FON_FREE_INTERNET can be very deceiving to people who stumble upon Fon for the very first time. People will end up thinking they get unlimited free access to the internet (now that I think about it, they already get unlimited access to google, which I think is a bad idea) and in reality they get a 15 minute free trial or are forced to purchase a day pass. I encourage everyone to express your opinions on the Fon Boards and change the name of your public wifi signal. Thank you Fon for advertising that your giving away "free" Internet.

Fon Boards: "Change of FON_AP to FON_FREE_INTERNET"

Fon Blog: "New FON Spot Name"

Fon Russia and Comstar Partnership

2008-06-13T19:48:00.001-04:00

When I first saw this whole deal with Fon Russia, I thought it was a complete joke. Fon used part of the 9.5 million dollars that they received for this and just recently El Fon Blog made a post about the number of active Fon Spots and found out (on May 21, 2008) that Fon Russia only had 23 Hotspots! Now, Fon has partnered up with Comstar in Russia and (a quote from Martin's blog)

"Comstar and FON will jointly develop a Wi-Fi internet access network in Russia, initially focusing on Comstar’s subscribers in Moscow, who will be able to easily join the FON Community. Comstar plans to establish 30,000 Wi-Fi access points in Moscow in 2008-2009 before expanding to other regions.

Comstar’s users will be able to rent La Fonera routers, connect them to their Internet connection and join the FON network. Like other Foneros, they will be able to roam for free in any place covered by FON, including the Comstar-FON network, using personal login and password details for Comstar’s DSL network. People who are not Foneros (we call them Aliens) will be able to access Comstar-FON’s network using pre-paid cards, SMS or the usual options available on our captive portal."

I guess that another 30,000 Fon hotspots would help add to the total of Fon spots worldwide (more in Russia doesn't do me any good though) and no where does Martin say in his post that the hotspots that Comstar plans on creating will all be Fon Spots. Also, Comstar users will have to rent La Fonera's. (who's making money off of this anyway? Fon and/or Comstar.)

Glad to see that money is being spent were it is needed. I think Fon needs to start doing more for the USA.

Martins Blog: "FON partners with Comstar in Russia"

Fon Blog: "COMSTAR AND FON WIRELESS DEVELOP GLOBAL WI-FI NETWORK IN RUSSIA"

How to advertise Fon...

2008-06-07T20:35:00.000-04:00

Daniel Alvarez Perez, a Fonero from Spain and graphic artist, created a couple of very interesting advertisements for Fon.

Martins blog: "Advertising can be art"

Fon + Japan + Amazon = very popular

2008-06-02T13:10:00.003-04:00

Adding to my previous post on Fon in Japan and Hong Kong, we will take a quick look at how popular La Fonera is on Amazon.co.jp (Amazon Japan). When Martin first blogged about this he said that La Fonera was "the third best networking product in Amazon Japan." Again I ask myself the question, why is this so?

Martins Blog: "La Fonera at Amazon Japan"

Fon Article in New York Times

2008-05-27T20:54:00.003-04:00

There was a recent article in the New York Times written by John Markoff entitled "Global Dreams for a Wireless Web" featuring Fon and its founder Martin Varsavsky. I would comment on it, but I think I will skip that for now. Some linkage for your reading pleasure:

Martin's Blog: "John Markoff´s great article on Fon"

Fon Blog: "FON Featured in the New York Times"

New York Times: "Global Dreams for a Wireless Web"

EDIT: It seems El Fon Blog decided to comment on the article

El Fon Blog: "NYT Article Flubs FON Statistics"

Fon's latest (fake) economic figures

2008-05-22T14:01:00.003-04:00

Well it seems like after some controversy, even though we still know that these numbers are a lie, Martin decided to release information about the number of active hotspots, number of foneros, and total revenue that Fon has pulled in.

"Revenues at Fon last month were slightly over 100K euros. Gross margins are over 70%. Cash burn which was over a million euros during December was down to 480K euros in April and is going down to 350K euros in June. This puts us on target to be profitable in the last quarter of 2009. Number of registered Foneros is at 830,000. Number of registered hotspots is 332,000 and of active hotspots at anytime has gone up to 212,000 around the world up from 145,000 in December. Last week we added 6000 hotspots and we are on target to have 300K hotspots by year end. Headcount is 61 employees around the world which is remarkable for a company that is managing the largest and fastest growing WiFi network in the world. Our top countries are UK, France, Japan, Germany, USA, Taiwan, Spain and Italy."

Martin's blog: "Fon latest figures"

Fon Boards: "Economical Data"

El Fon Blog: "Fon Math 2008"

What I find interesting from all of this, besides the fact that we can not verify this information and never will (go figure), is the number of active hotspots compared to the total number of registered hotspots. Approximately 36% of the routers registered are inactive. What the heck is going on here Martin. First, you question the public on "Why do some Foneros disconnect their Fonera WiFi router?" and now you confirm that more than one third of your company is wasted. This absolutly astounds me and the numbers that he gives us still don't tell the whole story. First, he says "up to 212,000 active hotspots" and second we don't know how many total routers were sold. I'm sure if we take into consideration the average number of active hotspots (which is probably less than 212,000) and the total number of routers sold, that 36% of inactive Fon routers will increase significantly. Of course, Fon will not disclose this information or they can kiss of their investors (and their money) goodbye.

Again check out the Fon boards link I posted above. Since we can not verify any of this information, I really don't know what to think of all of this. I think everything boils down to quality not quantity. If we can't access the Fon hotspot, we might as well just not even count it as being active. From what I know, FrancoFon keeps track of the number of hotspots, and their numbers come up different from Martins. The El Fon Blog post (link above) discusses this, I don't know much about it and I don't want to misinterpret information.

FrancoFon: "count 206,886 registered Fon hotspots, not 332,000 or 198,366. FrancoFon has determined that 95,324 Fon hotspots are active, (but who knows if they are accessible?) not 212,000."

This means that 46% of the total hotspots are inactive! So who do we believe in the end? It seems to me that Fon once again is hiding information that only they will ever know. I encourage you to read the three links I posted above and remember this information when you keep you Fon router on and have trouble finding an active Fon hotspot to connect to.

Fon in Japan and Hong Kong

2008-05-19T10:35:00.002-04:00

Its amazing how big FON is over in Japan and Hong Kong. I know some of this information is a couple months, but I think it is still worth mentioning. Anyway, it shows that Fon does work in some places and with the right marketing and partnerships, Fon can flourish around the world. Something like this can actually increase the number of Fon hotspots (so that Fon doesn't have to fudge the numbers to look good for their investors).

The first thing that I present to you is, World’s first FON-enabled high-rise building in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. I really don't know too much about the building, but it is full of restaurants and bars. This seems like a very ideal place for people to go especially if you are looking for cheap wifi access. Also, FON Hong Kong was awarded the Caring Company logo 2007-2008 for its efforts to give back to the community.

Martins Blog: "World’s first FON-enabled high-rise building"

Fon Blog: "An update from Hong Kong"

Now on to Fon Japan. Now what amazes me is that 80% of Tokyo is covered by Fon Wifi and there are over 31,000 Fon hotspots in Japan. Now, we all know how Fon makes up numbers for the count of active Fon hotspots (we're not going to discuss that, but it shows up on the forums every once in a while when people start complaining about not finding wifi access). Fon, from what I know, has always been quite large in Japan, but now it is even larger since Fon has partnered up with Livedoor. Livedoor is some type of commercial hotspot slash wifi operation. What I find interesting is some of the comments on Martins blog about this:

A post by freechelmi:

"Martin, I read some news around telling FOn has 700000 spots worldwide ? How do you count this before giving numbers to journalists? I see only 70000 roughly TOP 20 in the World.

Let’s talk about online spots only .

that would be great if everybody would talk about the same kind of information regarding coverage."

A Post by yvan:

"hey

that’s bullshit

I live in tokyo, I am a livedoor wifi subscriber and I have a palmtop wifi device so I can tell you that the actual coverage of the FON+LIVEDOOR network is probably less than 1%. I’d like to know what is the meaning of the 80%? area? population?

Anyway, I’m always checking the available networks in the streets, in coffeeshop, etc… and I almost never see a FON or LIVEDOOR hotspot.

My guess is that maybe 80% of the population in downtown tokyo can find a hotspot in his neighbourhood…, but he has to take his laptop with him and go there."

Martins blog: "Tokyo 80% covered!"

It also seems that the Fon boards confirm that "Tokyo livedoor is a joke"

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4200

Moving on to Fon night in Japan. It was "an event to celebrate and thank Foneros, bloggers, media and corporate partners in Japan. I introduced the event and we gave an update on FON’s success in the country, our second most popular country after the UK, but the first in terms of connected foneras." Seems like the purpose of this was for Fon to meet up with partners and companies and to show off products.

Martins blog: "Fon night in Japan"

Finally FON Japan and Seven Seas Techworks have partnered up to give free Foneras and ipod touches to students. "Students will get an iPod Touch to access content and services like their class schedule, study materials, attendance management system. They will also be able to watch videos of the classes they missed, study the materials they received and look for job offers on their iPod touch." This seems like a great way to not only promote Fon (and Apple), but get technology involved in the classroom. I personally think its a brilliant idea and something like this would work in many colleges and universities. (except I don't think Apple will just give away ipods, but that's beside the point) Again this shows how Fon Japan is way ahead of the game. More things like this need to happen all around the world in order for Fon to thrive. Martin needs to get his game together if he plans of making Fon the best that it can be.

Martins blog: "Foneras and iPod Touch for students in Japan"

A little side note: I realized today that I seem to be commenting on Martins Blog too much, but it doesn't matter to me. If anyone reading this finds interesting stuff on the internet (websites, news articles, gadgets, etc. let me know about it and your opinion). I try to search for stuff, but at times it can be hard. Anyway the one purpose of this blog is to be the one place that you can go to for all of your Fon news and thats what I seem to be striving towards.

Have Fon, everybody!

FON is paying you earlier!

2008-05-07T15:39:00.003-04:00

There has been some people on the English Fon boards that have been complaining about the $30 payout limit, it doesn't make a difference to me (since I have only made $1.50 from 15 minutes free trials), but for some it might make a difference.

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4108#p29544

What happens when there is no Internet?

2008-04-27T17:49:00.003-04:00

I don't understand why Martin posted this on his blog, but he makes a good point and he shows that Fon is not successful as he wants it to be. So heres a video for your own personal entertainment. Enjoy!

Martin's Blog: "Why we are building Fon (as portrayed by South Park)"

Fonera 2.0 and The Fonosfera [UPDATED]

2008-04-14T21:10:00.013-04:00

Looks like Martin released some details about the up coming La Fonera 2.0 and a new thing called The Fonosfera. Go ahead read it, I made some parts that I found interesting bold. It seems like Fon might finally be embracing hacking (that or else they realize that they are horrible at developing firmware for their routers and/or are too cheap to hire people to do it, this could explain why they plan on selling it cheap [I hope]). At the same time, this might finally give Fon that push in the right direction that they are currently unable to achieve or be a recipe for disaster.

"As I’ve recently disclosed, our main objective at FON is the launch of our next product, the Fonera 2.0. The Fonera 2.0 is a Fonera that will not only make it easy to provide WiFi for yourself and for your neighbors, it will also provide Foneros with great features like the ability to connect a hard drive to it and autonomously upload or download content from the Internet while you’re doing something else on your laptop or your PC is off. In short the Fonera 2.0 will manage your daily relationship with the Web 2.0 doing such thing as sending your pictures to Flickr, your videos to Youtube, downloading your torrents, etc. Many of the things that the new Fonera will do a PC can do of course but why tie up a thousand dollar investment with your vital info doing menial task when you can have a $49 Fonera do them.

The Fonera 2.0 will be an open platform for developers to build their applications on top of, much like a hacked iPhone is now. An open platform is nothing without a community of developers, so we’re announcing today the launch of The Fonosfera, our development community program that will span not only the Fonera 2.0 but all Fon products. We know there are already many communities doing great things with our Foneras, adding new features and fixing bugs. The idea behind the Fonosfera is to bring all the development work the communities have been doing and will do in the future to any Fon user.

The Fonosfera will be a chance for all these communities to keep working independently, while contributing to the development of Fon products including the Fonera 2.0 and the applications that will run on it. The Fonosfera will provide a space for gathering and sharing between developers and to make their projects available to end users all around the world. It will include a framework with development and community tools such as svn, trac, forums, mailing list, wiki etc. We already picked a few communities that have proved they can do great things with the Fonera and sent them a test version of our Fonera 2.0.

The Fonera 2.0 will provide a USB connection and users will be able to plug any sort of USB device to it (as long as there’s software support in the firmware, and we invite developers to add support for any device they might think of). The Fonera 2.0 will provide out of the box the ability to connect a hard drive or pendrive to it, so you can access it on your local network and use it to store the contents your Fonera 2.0 will download from the Internet for you. Another interesting feature we are working on is the ability to connect an HSDPA modem to the USB port of the Fonera 2.0, to share an HSDPA connection on the move or where DSL is not available.

We are working hard to make the Fonera 2.0 as open as possible, and we are willing to take all the help the development community can bring to Fon and Foneros. Our users will still have to wait a few months to get their Foneras 2.0, but we’re sure it will be worth the wait."

Martin's Blog Post: The Fonosfera: FON’s development community program and the Fonera 2.0

[UPDATE: 4/15/08]

Looks like Martin is back at it again with ideas for what La Fonera 2.0 could do. Some of them are kind of weird, crazy, stupid, and yet a few are good.

Martin's Blog post: "My ideas for La Fonera 2.0"

[UPDATE: 4/15/08]

Fon Blog: "Fonosfera: The FON Development Community"

FON Raises $9.5 Million

2008-04-11T20:28:00.004-04:00

"We are happy to report that at Fon we have raised $9.5 million in a C round. Our current valuation which unfortunately I can´t disclosed has been the best valuation so far. This does not mean that we were not hurt by current market conditions which are pretty bad for start ups (Fon was founded in February 2006). Our leading investor in the round was a US Venture Capital arm of Sistema, Russia´s leading telco but our usual suspects, Google, British Telecom, Digital Garage and of course your blog writer participated in the round.

What are we going to do with the money? Launch Fon in Russia, launch the Fonera 2.0 (the fonera that uploads and downloads stuff to and from the internet while you are doing something else with your laptop) and develop the fonera 802.11n for an end of the year launch.

Unfortunately we will also have to do all this spending less money because this market forces us to do so. We already cut losses at Fon from $1.3 million per month to $800K per month in the last half year and we achieved this through cost reductions, a great reduction in router subsidies and increased revenues with high margins. We plan to do more of the same in the future and my target is to be losing half a million per month by June and to break even by the end of 09. And yes I do know that I should not be telling any of these things because we are a private company but if this blog is of any value to entrepreneurs I believe I must share them with you.

Bottom line: tough market forces you to think harder about everything you do but we are very happy to have closed this C round."

Well, this kind of money will hopefully help FON move on from their current slump. It will be nice to see how the Fonera 2.0 turns out, but I'm worried about the retail price of it is going to be. I have a feeling that the router is going to be a failure, it's going to be too expensive and still have only one LAN port. On the other hand, it will have a USB port (might come in handy, since you will be able to attach a USB storage device). I would rather see some of this money being spent making the Fonera 1.0 better, expanding the FON community, not wasting money on things like Twitxr, developing the Mexican Wave site, paying hot celebrities, and maybe developing firmware for a real router (something like a linksys router). I guess they have a reason to start FON Russia, I don't know, but I'm assuming there is some type of market over there. It doesn't help out the US though. As for the Fonera 802.11n, I don't think there will be a market for it yet or this year as a matter of the fact. Give it time though, just like technology has moved from 802.11b to 802.11g, wireless-n will eventually become the new standard. Anyway, read the techcrunch article and the comments (some of them are pretty interesting and Martin has responded too)

Links:

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/investments/fon-raises-95-million-in-tough-markets.html

http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/business/fon-raises-95-million.html

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/10/fon-raises-another-95-million-in-c-round/

and of course, the community opinion

http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?p=28915

The World's Biggest Mexican Wave!

2008-04-08T20:51:00.006-04:00

"Together with our partner BT, we are launching The World’s Biggest Mexican Wave, an initiative to raise awareness of the BT FON community, which has been growing really fast and has now more then 70,000 members."

"Anybody can be part of The Biggest Mexican Wave. Joining the wave is very easy, watch some tips on how to film and submit your own (you can use a webcam, a camera or your mobile phone). Once you upload your video you’ll be part of the world’s biggest Mexican wave, watch it on the website and try to spot yourself!"

Martin's Blog: "The World's Biggest Mexican Wave"

Heck, if it works for sporting events, why not FON and BT. Also,

"BT FON has been selected by the judges as a finalist in the Most Innovative Wireless Broadband Company category of the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards. Vote for BT FON!"

Martin's Blog: "2008 Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards"

Never heard of the Wireless Broadband Innovation Awards, well neither have I, but I guess it is another accomplishment (well, not quite yet?) for FON and BT.

And this raises the question: how is BT Fon going to reach out to the public with this? Well the answer is: Hire a Model...

"The Sun’s coverage of BT FON’s latest campaign. The girl in the photo is Jennifer Metcalfe, star actress in the UK.

Peter Crouch and Jennifer Metcalfe have grabbed their sombreros to spice up the launch of the world’s biggest ever Mexican Wave.

Liverpool striker Crouch and Hollyoaks stunner Metcalfe are promoting BT FON’s fun new campaign which aims to find out which football team in the UK has the most passionate fans.

Bradford babe Metcalfe visited Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium for Saturday’s clash with Liverpool to meet who filmed their own, unique Mexican Waves.

To me it is fontastic to see all this going on as BT is showing Fon that if you really want to reach the general public you have to go for themes that are less geeky than ours. Who would not dream of being able to connect to Jennifer Metcalfe´s Fonera?"

Martin's Blog: "BT Fon and how to reach the general public with Fon"

The Sun Article

Hmm... Martin's last line there cracks me up. So what are you just sitting there for. Get up and join in on The World's Biggest Mexican Wave! And heres why...

I Think FON is ______ (Fill in the Blank)

2008-04-04T16:27:00.004-04:00

I was a bit surprised to read a post on Martin V's blog entitled "Why do some Foneros disconnect their Fonera WiFi router?" Then after reading some of the comments (some of them are pretty good) and reading a recent entry on El Fon Blog, I decided to give my take on it. (There are other complaints that can be found in my blog)

I'll make this short and simple:

La Fonera is a wireless ONLY router and if you want ONE lan port be prepared to fork out 50 bucks. For only $60 after rebate you can get a Linksys WRT54GL that had four lan ports and a much better deal.

Personally where I live, there are only like 5 FON Spots around and I have never tried to access them because they are too far out of the way for me to get to. Also, it doesn't help that I live in a city that if I need wifi I can just head onto the college campus or go to some other place (like Dunkin Donuts) and get free wifi access.

I have only had one or two aliens log into my FON Spot (repeatedly) just to use the 15 minutes of free access. They did this for about a month or two, and then I blocked them using the FreeWLAN addons, but later unblocked them. For the first time I had a Fonero log into my FON Spot last month after it has been up and running for about a year.

I personally don't care for the idea that anyone can use my internet access to download all kinds of who knows what and have no control over it. This makes me responsible for illegal downloading, porn, and more. I use openDNS to block certain websites, but there is not much more I can do.

Unencrypted wifi . . . need I say anymore.

The firmware on the router is ____. I really can't explain it, but the FreeWLAN addons help out a little. The original firmware works perfect for me, but from what I have read on the boards, many people have problems installing and setting up their Foneras. Sometimes (once a month or so) I have to power cycle my router just for it to show up as "online" and the FON website.

The Fontenna, kind of works. I noticed a little bit of a gain with it, but it's not worth $20. For those who got it for $2, your lucky because now the cheapest you can get it is for $10. I'm glad I got mine for free. I think it's a poorly constructed antenna to begin with and it doesn't help that the cable for it is like 10 feet long.

DD WRT. . . need I say anymore, again.

I quit now, I'm sure there is a ton more to complain about (I don't want to get into stuff that I don't know what I'm talking about), but I'm not going to bother. I have and will keep my Fonera up and running as long as FON exists. Don't get me wrong. I like the idea of FON, some things need to be changed. The next episode of FON wifi, FON will ________...

Expecting new stuff from FON, lets see what the future holds

2008-04-03T16:38:00.004-04:00

I have a suspicion that we might me expecting something from FON within the next couple of months.

First FON is starting a new beta testers program (at least in the US), information can be found on the forums. Don't bother trying to get in, everything is closed as of now until "the new firmware is ready to roll out" and they are ready to get more testers. Its hard to tell when this is going to start, this topic started in mid February.

Second, on the forums again, a picture of the "new router" was posted. Its hard to tell if its real or not, but it was posted by a moderator.

And last, Martin posted about a hacked fonerabot. In the comments of the post, somebody asked why doesn't FON "release a development firmware of Fonera..." and Martin's response was "In the next 90 days we will!"

What's going on over at FON, I personally want to find out. FON first came out with the Linksys router, then La Fonera, then La Fontenna, and most recently (about July 2007) La Fonera +. Could this be the "FON Liberator" or "La Fonera 2.0," it's like "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie roll pop, the world may never know" and I leave it at that. . .

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/and-the-winner-is-fonerabot.html

search the forums for the others.

[UPDATE: 4/4/2008]

Wow, its true. La Fonera 2.0 (the one with the USB port) will be coming out sometime this year. I thought that it couldn't be true at first, but a few things came up on a blog and the German FON Blog.

Here's what it said on the German FON Blog. 30 of the routers were sent out for alpha testing and that round of testing has been closed. (both sites need to be translated using google)

http://webdearde.com/blogs/mifulapirus/2008/04/03/fonera-20-primeras-impresiones

http://blog.fon.com/de/archive/technology/fontechnology-la-fonera-20-alpha-beta-gamma.html

New FON Promo codes, Save on La Fonera or La Fonera +

2008-04-02T12:16:00.005-04:00

Save $15 on La Fonera (comes to $24.95 after shipping) code: A365391948608881
Save $10 on La Fonera + (comes to $49.95 after shipping) code: A801939721353896

(The promotion code for La Fonera could expire at any time, if you look at the terms and agreements it says it expires in January 30, 2008. This code is the same that I previously posted, its just now valid again)

Keep an eye out on the right hand side of my blog under "Current FON News!" for up to date information, promotion codes, and more!

Intel sends WiFi up to 60 miles

2008-03-26T21:39:00.002-04:00

"Intel has developed technology to send WiFi up to 60 miles! I read the article in Technology Review and immediately thought it was too good to be true. I hope I'm wrong! According to the story the technology is node to node, directional, moves up to 6.5 mbps, and requires very little power (think solar). There are some limitations. In real world testing it's useful to about 30 miles with a direct line of sight. There are more details in the video. With an estimated cost of $1000.00 this development could help bring technology to more rural areas soon."

http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/20432/?a=f

http://blogs.intel.com/research/2008/03/rural_connectivity_platform_be.php

FON keeps changing prices

2008-03-21T16:10:00.004-04:00

Don't know what made me visit the FON Shop, but when I did I discovered a few price adjustments.

1) Now you can add a Fontenna for only $9.95 with the purchase of La Fonera or La Fonera +
2) La Fonera is now $29.95
3) Fonero Gets Fonero price for La Fontenna raised too
4) Seems like they raised the price of shipping from $5 to $10 for non-FGF purchases.

Fon was offering La Fontenna for only $2 more, so for those who took advantage of the 90% discount, it was worth it. For those who missed out, think carefully before buying a Fontenna (it's better to spend the money on a high quality antenna, with a decent gain)

Unlimited access to GMAIL and other Google services at all Fonspots

2008-03-12T12:57:00.003-04:00

First FON offered aliens 15 minutes of free internet access by "watching" an advertisement and now they can get unlimited access to gmail and all other google services, but once they step outside of google they will be out of luck. They will have to wait until tomorrow for another free 15 minute pass, purchase a $3 day pass, or purchase a Fonera.

As an experiment in Fon we have opened Gmail access in all foneras. We have done this for a while now but we are now promoting this feature. This means that regardless of whether you are a fonero or not (foneros are members of the Fon community who share WiFi) when you find a Fonspot you can check your Gmail. You can also check any Google service including search, maps, news, and so long as you stay inside Google you can surf for free. We are doing this for three reasons. One to thank Google as an investor in Fon. Secondly because at Fon we all use many Google services and so do millions of people around the world and we appreciate the quick access. Third and most important for Fon, because since we opened the 15 minute free access on all Fonspots we have seen that many more people use Fon and even if they are not WiFi donors (foneros) they pay for Fon (buy day passses as Aliens). There was a debate at Fon on whether if we gave free access we would sell more or less passes to Aliens but now the answer is clear. We sell more passes because Aliens now know the service works well before they pay.

We believe that Gmail users will love the fact that Fon lets them check their email without paying or donating. And we think that this will encourage people to become Foneros as most people who use gmail also do many other things, like go to Microsoft sites, or Yahoo, or big local portals like Terra, or Facebok and other social communities and all the other wonderful things that the net has to offer. To do that they will either have to become Foneros by buying a Fonera or buy an Alien day pass. In any way Fon will grow faster.

Fon is always free for those who share so those who share will not be affected. Fon also protects those who share in two ways, one is with a firewall and encrypted personal access so nobody from the outside can enter their network and secondly with a bandwidth throttle that limits those who use their fonera to a small portion of their bandwidth.

To become a Fonero all you need to do is buy a Fon router at our online shop, connect it and never pay again when you connect away from home. If you would like to know if there are any foneros in your city you can go to our maps.

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net

http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/general/gmail-and-fon.html

Panasonic’s Skype WiFi phone is now FON friendly

2008-03-10T13:43:00.004-04:00

Finally a new wifi phone can be used on FON hotspots. First it was the SMC WSKP100 (see skype.com and fon.com for more details) and now the Panasonic KX-WP800 (I think, there is a lack in details about the phone, this post will be updated when more information is known about it) I'm interested in seeing how the phone performs because I have read about the SMC phone and it doesn't seem like a quality phone (search to internet and the FON boards for reviews), but for now we will just have to wait. From what I have read the phone will be about $290 and should be available sometime around the end of the month.

FON Japan has helped Panasonic to FON-enable its latest Skype WiFi phone set, making it possible for its users to easily connect to any FON Spot and call for free or very low rates using Skype.

The phone is on sale in Japan and comes with a WiFi router to use at home. But what is more interesting for Foneros is that it can be conveniently used as a Skype phone even outside your home as it automatically connects to any FON signal when one is detected. Users enter their FON login and password during the initial configuration and the phone will store them to easily connect to any FON Spot.

Foneros living in Tokyo, where we recently reached 80% coverage, should be particularly interested as the combination of this nice WiFi device and FON could help them save a lot when calling outside of their homes. Bring your Skype phone with you and make free calls connecting to any FON Spot in Tokyo, including 2.200 Livedoor access points in great locations.

http://blog.fon.com/en/archive/gadgets/panasonic-fonenabled-skype-wifi-phone.html

http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/panasonics-skype-wifi-phone-is-now-fon-friendly.html

"FON Hopes to Break WiFi Free of Fees"

2008-02-29T11:02:00.005-05:00

Interesting little article, but if you ask me it lacks any real information about FON. (I picked through and quoted the main points, overall the article says a whole lot of nothing and would also like to know where this information came from.)

http://www.usnews.com/

"AT&T recently announced it would give free WiFi access to many Starbucks customers at the coffee stores. But efforts to blanket whole cities have stumbled as costs and technical challenges overwhelm municipal governments and their partners. A crushing blow came when EarthLink said it was abandoning plans to spread a wireless network across a number of metropolitan areas."

"FON has the backing of Google, Skype, and other investors that envision a free, worldwide wireless network that can compete with cellphone companies and other providers. FON has had greater success overseas, getting 80 percent coverage or better in cities like Tokyo, Berlin, and Leipzig, Germany."

"FON, for example, recently decided to target the Castro district in San Francisco. The effort mirrors one in a predominantly gay neighborhood in Madrid, Rees says. "We've found gay neighborhoods have a strong sense of community and a high adoption of technology.""

"FON execs say they welcome the expanded access to WiFi, although many FON routers in this country were aimed at Starbucks stores. Those routers would typically charge for access at a rate cheaper than what Starbucks offered, with the hotspot owner sharing revenue with FON. Those FON participants who charge for access, sharing revenue with the network, are a minority. Most of the router owners offer free access. FON hopes to eventually make money from advertising on those routers."

"Here, it's been lucky to get the explicit blessing of Time Warner that its cable modem customers could share their access. Sharing broadband is expressly forbidden in many end-user contracts. FON's Rees says no Internet service provider has yet complained about customers sharing access, but FON wants more explicit support from other U.S. broadband companies."

"Communities might encourage a patchwork of smaller networks as efforts falter to build giant, citywide WiFi systems. Rees argues that a patchwork is more sustainable in the long run. But that also suggests a long, laborious process that will keep most WiFi in chains for a while."

Happy Birthday FON!

2008-02-07T17:02:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm a little late on this, but FON is 2 years old (as of yesterday)

FON For Dummies

2008-02-06T20:55:00.001-05:00

(I'm borrowing the idea for this from El Fon Blog, but he makes a good point on how there seems to be a lack in knowledge and a confusion in terms and I can't quite figure out why. I still think that this is something that needs to be gone over, because even I learned something from this. I intend for this guide to be a one stop information source for everything FON.)

So now I give you: FON For Dummies

About Fon

What's Fon?
FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. FON is a community of people making WiFi universal and free. Our vision is WiFi everywhere made possible by the members of the Community, Foneros. We share some of our home Internet connection and get free access ti the Community's FON Spots worldwide!

SHARE
Our Community WiFi router, La Fonera, allows everyone to share WiFi in a secure environment. It takes only five minutes to hook up, and then you've got WiFi at home and around the world for free!

CONNECT
Foneros connect to thousands of WiFi FON Spots worldwide for free. If you still do not share your WiFi, you can purchase inexpensive access. Find FON Spots on our FON Maps.

Have FON
FON is a Movimiento of people building a free, global WiFi Community, sharing our experiences and ideas. Visit our blogs, boards and enjoy our cool features!

DEFINITIONS:

FON Community: Group of members registered with FON and with a functioning access point that becomes a FON Hotspot.

Martin Varsavsky: Founder and CEO of FON.

Fonero: A Linus or Bill member of the FON Community.

Linus (es): A registered user of FON that shares bandwidth with the FON Community in exchange for free connection to any FON Hotspot.

Bill(s): Someone who shares their WiFi at home or business andd make money from their WiFi. They get a %50 share of the money that Aliens pay to access the Community through their FON Access Point. Bills also get free WiFi wherever they can find a FON Access Point.

Alien(s): A registered user who does not offer a FON Hotspot and who connects to the FON Community using the Hotspots of Linuses or Bills after purchasing a FON Pass. They pay $3 for a day pass or $10 for a 5 day pass pack to access the FON Community.

Leech: An "unknown" Alien/Registered user who takes advantage of the 15 minute free trial on a regular basis and will never pay for a day pass (but if your like me and have this problem, I blocked them using the FreeWLAN addons, hehehehe...)

FON Hotspot: A WiFi access point available through the FON Community.

FON Social Router: Router distributed and enabled with the FON Software.

FON Pass(es): Ticket that is purchased by an Alien in order to be able to access FON Hotspots.

Fonero Gets Fonero: Invite your friends to become Foneros as well. Now, you can: 1. Get your friends a better offer with La Fonera for only $/€5.99 + La Fontenna for only $/€1.99 (+ $/€5.00 for shipping); 2. Invite more friends – up to 20; 3. Manage your invitations, delete pending invitations and send reminders.

La Fonera : A WiFi router that plugs into your broadband Internet connection, and turns it into a WiFi Access Point. That means you can connect your laptop, handheld game console, or PDA to the Internet without any wires, so you can move around your house freely. Supports the 802.11b and 802.11g standards only.

La Fonera +: La Fonera + comes with an additional ethernet port. Now thanks to the two ports, you can share WiFi and use the router for connecting to your desktop computer. La Fonera + comes with an additional internal antenna specially designed to work with La Fontenna. It gives great indoor coverage while you can use La Fontenna to direct your WiFi signal towards other Foneros.

Both La Fonera And La Fonera+ provide 2 WiFi signals:
1. One encrypted WiFi signal that is only for your own private use (MYPLACE)
2. A second one that requires authentication and is for all other registered Foneros (FON_AP)

Don't want to purchase La Fonera or La Fonera+, you can download the FON firmware for the following routers and turn them into a FON Hotspot:
* Linksys G/GL
* Linksys GSV1-v3
* Linksys GSV4

* Buffalo WZR-RS-G54
* Buffalo WHR-G54S
* Buffalo HP-G54

La Fontenna : La Fontenna is a directional antenna that sends your FON WiFi signal further, boosting the coverage of the FON Community by up to five times and improving your WiFi experience. La Fontenna solves the problem of weak or blocked signals. By adding La Fontenna and directing it outdoors in the direction you want coverage, you'll get the coverage you want, and you'll also be making your FON Spot more accessible to your fellow Foneros nearby.

***Note: If you are a Linus or Bill, you shall check if you are permitted to share bandwidth in accordance with your ISP user agreement as you are solely responsible for compliance with the ISP´s contractual obligations.***

My Fon Blog

Anyone order 400,000 foneras?

Fon launches the PeekFon

WiFi Gadgets: Cradlepoint CTR-350 Black Cellular Travel Router

Discounted Fonera 2.0n

Borders Signs Agreement with Verizon to Offer Free Wi-Fi

WiFi Gadgets: Verizon Mifi

A legal Battle for Fon

Fonera 2.0n available in USA on 9-23

Why Fon isn't safe

Free WiFi and not from Fon

Fonera 2.0n Preview

WiFi Gadgets: D-Link Wireless Pocket Router/AP

Fonera 2.0n

Help Wanted: FON Looking for a "Junior Technician"

Fifty Tech Startups You Should Know

Look out Fon here comes French ISP Free

Fon partners with E-Plus

Give your Fonera some style with a custom skin

Let there be Fonera 2.0

Wifi.com acquires Whisher

What are the main benefits of wifi.com for users?

Fonera 2.0 Development

Get Free WiFi by tunneling through DNS - Hak5

Newsletter: January/February 2009

YEAR OF THE OX MEETS THE MONTH OF THE AX

FON chops down the price on the La Fonera 1.0!

Use the FON promo code: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

FON SAVES THE DAY

Big city blogger offers thanks to unknown Fonero in small town

GET READY FOR FON´s BEST ROUTER YET,THE LA FONERA 2.0

Designed to fit your Web 2.0 lifestyle

3 years of Fon

America's Most Wired Cities

Lower Prices for Fon Passes

Fon 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy Holidays!

FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: November/December 2008

NEW YEAR, NEW FON ROUTER

Make a resolution to get a FON router at a discount

FISH AND CHIPS MEETS FON AND BT

Foneros get even more access to WiFi in the UK

MAKING MONEY BY LAND AND SEA

GO GO GADGETS!

FON makes it easier to connect to WiFi with more mobile devices

Find FON Spots on your iPhone

Hotspot Shield by AnchorFree

Free security and privacy product ensures your anonymity while on-line.

100% Security Through a VPN

WiFi in your camera

Eye-Fi

A Wireless Memory Card?

How It Works

Wireless Cameras

Outdoor Foneras under development

Meraki Solar-powered outdoor nodes

WiFi Gadgets: Sony Mylo - COM2

Shoot Video...Now you're a star

Enhanced Web Browsing

Instant Messaging. Where and when you want.

mylo Widgets

Built in Camera

Voice Calling with Skype®

Music and Video

Free Wi-Fi access at McDonald's and more 10

SHOUTcast® Internet Radio

New Fonera 2.0 Firmware and videos

15 minute free trial change along with prices

My Fon Blog on Twitter

Fon Failure: Unfolding News

Free Access For buying La Fonera

Fonera 2.0, Fonosfera.org Update, and more

La Fonera 2.0 - Now Sold Everywhere

Fon Raises Prices

My La Fonera is up and running

Hacking La Fonera Part 2: Episodes from Hak5

My Fonera is officially turned off

FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: September/October

Getting better all the time

GET READY FOR FON´s BEST ROUTER YET,
THE LA FONERA 2.0

Free Wi-Fi access at McDonald's and more ¹⁰

Unplug the Fonera from the power. Open up a command prompt in Windows (Start->Run->”cmd”), and type the following line:
ping 169.254.255.1 -t
Plug the Fonera back into the power. Whenever you start to see “Reply from 169.254.255.1…”, you can move on to the following step.

If you are having trouble knowing when to start the Telnet connection, open up a command prompt in Windows (Start->Run->”cmd”), and type the following line:
`ping 192.168.1.254 -t`
Whenever you start to see “Reply from 192.168.1.254…”, then hit connect in the Telnet client.