T-Mobile vs FON
Last night, when we announced that today we were going to change our FONero distribution system in Germany, from a system based on credit card payments to a based on trust, I said that our objective with this “demonstration” was to create the largest public WLAN/WiFi network in Germany, free for Linus FONeros (Bill and Alien FONeros have to pay 10 euros for a 5 day pass to use it).
While T-Mobile, with its 4500 access points, is still the largest WiFi network, at Fon we believe that this won´t be the case for long. Since February, when FON started, we had deployed a total of around 3000 access points. But only today we have received 1800 orders for Foneras from people in Germany. So it is likely that in the next 3 weeks we will be the largest WiFi network in Germany.
Posted on FON | 5:18 pm
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Posted by Roberto - October 19, 2006 6:16 pm - #
What do you do about location quality? T-Mobile is present at train stations, airports, public places, cafes etc. I do not want to sit in front of a unknown house with my laptop on my knees to read my email. I need public places, restaruants, cafes or a simple starbucks to get my online stuff done..
Posted by henri - October 19, 2006 11:18 pm - #
congrats!
questoin: is it a big accomplishment to overtake t-mobile (or anyone else) when one is giving away free routers?
of course, a better metric than # of APs would probably be the number of square meters of city surface covered. harder to measure of course.
Posted by Alan Bell - October 20, 2006 12:25 am - #
Excellent stuff, looking forward to similar efforts in the UK.
Posted by Martin Varsavsky - October 20, 2006 12:52 am - #
Roberto look at our maps and see where our foneros are and you will be surprised. Plus Foneros can get special antennas that concentrate signal along streets for up to 200 meters. In any case I do agree that T Mobile has better hotspots on a one to one comparison, as of today they have a larger network and better hotspots. But it is my forecast that at the rate we are growing in Germany with our people hotspot movement that we will have over twice as many hotspots as T Mobile by year end. Not bad for a start up built by the people.
Posted by Roberto - October 20, 2006 9:38 am - #
Martin, I agree on your points. But most of your profit will be genrated by “Bills” - and the Bills I know (people willing to actually pay for WLAN access like myself) use the WLAN for professional work. They sit in lobbies, in train stations and airports of this world. Or they drop into a Cafe to do some online work. My idea: Get the shop owners of airports and train-stations - as long as its not forbidden in their lease contracts.
Posted by Roberto - October 20, 2006 6:46 pm - #
Correction: I meant Aliens, not Bills.
Posted by Martin Varsavsky - October 23, 2006 5:01 pm - #
Henri,
Germans visit us by the millions over here in Spain, now our fonera visit Germany! And yes we are proud of this!
Posted by Martin Varsavsky - October 23, 2006 5:06 pm - #
Roberto,
Yes, we are working on that too, but Fon does not have a sales force
Posted by Thomas Kenyon - October 29, 2006 12:29 pm - #
I know that FON do not have a sales force, but can it provide official brochures and other literature that enthusiasts can distribute accordingly.
Even if they are only provided as PDFs.
Posted by Martin Varsavsky - October 30, 2006 4:40 pm - #
Great idea Thomas. Please feel free to design some and send them to us for our approval or else pls bear with us and we will produce some