FON MOVIMIENTO Newsletter: September/October

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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

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

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
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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

"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

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

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

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.