2005 12
Labs2
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
On Friday, I visited Labs2 and I « test-surfed » the internet at 1 Gig. Labs2 of Sweden offer internet connections of 1 Gig (uplink/downlink) for 89 EUR which is absolutely incredible. Surfing at those speeds is like landing a jet plane. Extasis. To have an idea of what it’s like to have a 1 Gig connection, here’s how long it took to perform the following downloads:
-new skype software: < 1 second
-high-resolution movie trailer by Apple (200 Mb): < 3 seconds.
-song on Napster < 1 second
I simply didn’t want to disconnect. In my house in Madrid, I have a 1 Mb connection (uplink) and much less on downlink. I asked for much faster connection and I was told to wait 5 weeks…
The system, that combines fiber-optic category 6 cables for a distance of up to 100 meters, is the best I have every seen.
2005 11
Sweden, India and FON
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I find the tremendous acceptance of FON in Sweden surprising. Here we are in one of the world´s most advanced technology islands and yesterday at SIME, when I was done talking about FON (you download my powerpoint presentation here), somebody asked for a show of hands and around 70% of the audience wanted to become fonero. In other words, download our software which will be available on Monday and build the wifi nation. I thought that here, in the land of affordable 3G, people would prefer that choice. But the comments at SIME were so negative on 3G and so favorable on wifi that the whole thing made my day. Interestingly, I was approached by an Indian woman who wants to do FON in India. In India, FON is all about using wifi to reach many at a low cost, say a lot of mini Bills, in fonero language. But in Sweden it´s about Swedish people with the latest wifi enable gadgets wanting to find wifi signal everywhere. And they loved it when I said that the wifi nation already exists, that no additional expenditure is needed but the making of it with a clever piece of software. The largest hotspots networks in the world have less than 20,000 hotspots, T Mobile is a good example. Next Tuesday when we put our software on the net we don´t know what may happened but we believe that the chaos of random downloading may beat the central planning of large corporations and yield in a reasonable time the largest wifi network in the world.
2005 11
Our Strategy vis a vis ISPs
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Our strategy vis a vis ISPs around the world is the same as the one in Spain. We want to team up with an ISP in a market and allow only that ISP to sell their DSL/Cable services with FON Inside. All others who want to be foneros, of course, can download our soft, buy the right routers (if they don´t have a Linux), enable wifi access point and get going with FON. But we think it´s easier to team up with one ISP who will make this simple claim to the potential customer. With our competitor you pay 30 euros per month for bandwidth and you get bandwidth at home. With us you pay the same 30 euros, but you get bandwidth all over the world for free! We have FON INSIDE.
2005 11
No deal with Swisscom
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
We finally did not reach an agreement with Swisscom, so shares in FON are still mostly with me except some that we are distributing in the form of a stock option plan to top foneros who help us out around the world.
2005 10
FON in Sweden
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Tomorrow, we’re launching FON in Sweden. Right now, I’m at the SIME scandinavian conference on the Internet. Sweden is an interesting case because people here are fascinated with the idea of FON, but not because you can earn money through FON nor because you can save money. Here, bandwidth is very large and very cheap. What Swedes seem to really like in FON is the idea of having a unified WiFi network with large bandwidth. They say that 3G was simply not good enough. There are companies here that offer fiber-optic connections in your home at speeds of up to 100Mb for only 30 EUR. Una locura, as we say in spanish. These are the only connections I’ve seen where the bottle neck is WiFi at 54 Mb.
This Friday, i asked to have a demonstration on how it is to surf at those speeds. For me, it’s a little like someone who’s going to go for a spin in a Ferrari.
2005 10
We did it!!!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
We finally managed to buy www.fon.com !!! It’s not that i didn’t like www.fon.es (and to be sure, it’s perfect for Spain) but if we want to go global, www.fon.com is essential.
2005 9
FON can become Europe’s biggest WiFi network
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
A big thank you to all the foners out there who sent us data on Telefonica, The Cloud and T Mobile hotspots.
To recap: Telefonica currently has the largest WiFi network in Spain with 900 hotspots. The Cloud has the largest WiFi network in Europe with 6000 hotspots. And finally, T Mobile has the largest WiFi network in the world with 14,000 hotposts. FON already has 1500 pre-registered foners, so this means that very soon, FON will have a larger network than Telefonica. Coupled with FON expansion in France and Sweden, FON could be the largest WiFi network in Europe by April of next year, with more than 6000 hotspots (to which Linuses will connect for free!).
2005 9
Linksys router WRT54G/GS
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
As I’ve written earlier, the fact that FON only works with Linksys WRT54G/GS routers is bugging some foners. To be sure, only 15% of pre-registered foners already have a compatible Linksys router. But believe me, these routers are amazing. In reality, they’re are like mini Linux computers on which you will be installing open software that will evolve very rapidly as new updates and plug-ins appear.
Right now, we’re negotiating a deal with Linksys to buy routers from them. As I’m writing this, the best price we found was 70 EUR but we hope to have them for 55 EUR at the SIMO launch for the first 1000 foners.
2005 8
Life Without Microsoft 2.0
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Ok. I tried to live without Microsoft for two weeks now and I confess…I’ve failed miserably. Like everything in life, there was some good and some bad in not using Microsoft anymore. But personally, as much as Firefox worked really well and is much better than Internet Explorer, Thunderbird is no match for Outlook. The rest of Microsoft Office is marginally superior to Openoffice, with the not-so-negligible fact that Openoffice is free and Microsoft Office is really expensive. For one person, the hefty price of a licence is tolerable, but buying licences for a whole company or NGO? No, thanks.
Bottom line: You definitely gain some things living without Microsoft, but you certainly lose out on other things.
2005 7
FON: not only bad news for mobile operators
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
We were examining the issue of coverage for Wififons yesterday and we concluded that although the advantage of Wififon over GSM (in terms of calling costs) is incredible, the disadvantage in terms of coverage is also quite important. For this reason, we’re thinking of creating DUAL Wififons that would combine WiFi and GSM. This way, foners would be able to call for free if there’s Wifi and pay if there isn’t. Either way, foneros would always stay connected. In other words, FON would also sell Wififons where you could insert a SIM card and mobile operators would make money.
Although very expensive, there’s no doubt that mobile operators have the best coverage and few people today are willing to completely let go off their GSM.