Here’s a new way to WiFi enabled cities that we at FON are undertaking in Oslo together with the 4G operator iBand and the billboard company Clear Channel. The basic idea here is that billboards are strategically placed in cities to be highly visible. They are placed where crowds go. And so is WiFi. For months now FON has been in conversations with billboard companies around the world about this opportunity including CBS Outdoor and others. And now we are launching our first deployment.

The problem with billboards is to get DSL or Cable lines to them. 4G however makes this easy. For a 4G to FON WiFi converter, all you need is electricity and that is already available in billboards. So three companies, iBand who provides the 4G, FON who provides the WiFi and Clear Channel, who provides the billboards, have teamed up to accomplish this in Oslo. Now wouldn’t you be more likely to look at a billboard if you knew that it provided you with WiFi?

Here’s the press release.
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Lately, we have been making so many ISP deals around the world that I lose track of them and find out about these agreements through the press by having a Google Alert on FON (as it is the case with this Swiss ISP this morning). An ISP deal means ISPs (DSL or Cable) who sell broadband and see teaming up with FON as a way to sell more broadband at no extra cost to them. In this case, I see it reported in the news but in a publication that I don’t have access to.
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In Forbes, an interesting perspective.

I am writing this post from the office of Francisco de la Torre, Malaga’s mayor, where we are about to announce that Malaga is becoming the world’s first FONero city (we already have FONero towns, but not a city of over half a million people). How does this work?
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I met Sanjit Biswas, the founder of Meraki, when he was a student at MIT and I was visiting Nicholas Negroponte. This was only last year which shows, among other things, a great side of USA and that is how fast somebody can go from being a super talented student to being CEO of a Sequoia funded company.
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I already reported that while Japan was one of the last countries in which we launched the Fonero Promise (the last one was USA) that FON Japan grew so fast that it quickly became a top Fonero country. Today I am happy to announce that the enthusiasm shown by the Japanese people is showing up as well in Japan’s top corporation. FON has reached an agreement with Sony to sell the La Fonera in the Sony Style shops. I understand that it is very uncommon to sell non Sony products in a Sony Style shop, and we are very pleased that Sony has trusted FON. We are very grateful.
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I am happy to announce that FON has raised another 10 million euros (or $13 million for a total of around $35 million raised since our incorporation in Feb 06). Funds were raised from a combination of current investors including myself and 4 non US new strategic investors whose identities we will disclose in the near future.

Proceeds of the round will be used for R&D and growing the number of Foneros around the world. Foneros are members of the FON Community, the largest WiFi community in the world. With FON you share a little bandwidth at home or work and you get to connect for free to all the other FONspots of Foneros around the world.

Foneros join FON by buying the La Fonera, FON’s unique WiFi routers that safely partition your WiFi signal into a private WiFi network that you access at home and where you have guaranteed bandwidth, and a roaming WiFi community called “FON” that other Foneros occasionally use when they pass near your home or workplace and log into. The La Foneras cost $/€39.95, their purchase price includes a lifetime free membership to the FON Community.

FON is now present in over 80 countries around the world. Key FON countries are USA, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, UK, Sweden, and Holland. FON distributes its WiFi routers directly through retailers or through our ISP and telco partners around the world. In key countries, FON is the first or second largest WiFi network by number of hotspots. The financing round closed yesterday.

Since I met Chad Hurley last July I kept saying that Youtube needed two main enhancements, one was languages other than English and the other to offer a live format. Well, today I tested a service provided by Comvu over my Nokia N80 and it worked extremely well, first live and then stored on Youtube (the video is boring and in Spanish, but it was done over Comvu and then automatically sent by Comvu to Youtube after the live stream was over).
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Here’s the article.