2009 6
FON´s new pricing structure and products
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
As FON continues to grow in size, now with well over 300,000 FON Spots and thousands of partner hotspots, we also continue to improve in quality and pricing.
Yesterday, FON launched several new access products and features designed to greatly improve the user experience of people accessing the FON network. Based on feedback from dedicated Foneros, we now offer an access portal with a different look and feel, a simplified lay-out and purchase flow, and two new ways to connect: 25 Minutes by SMS, and 1 Hour by credit card, SMS or PayPal.
We are also testing prices in some areas to find the right price to satisfy all members of our FON Community: Linus’s, who want Aliens to test the network so they would buy a La Fonera and grow the FON network, Bills who want to make money from Aliens connecting, and Aliens who want to surf the internet and test the FON network before purchasing a La Fonera. And, we launched the Alien access in Japan where so far the FON network was limited only to Linus and Bills.
Also we implemented that Bills will be able to transfer the money they make to their Prepaid WiFi account. They can use the Prepaid WiFi account to surf at the commercial hotspots of BT Openzone in the UK.
These are just the latest examples of how we are continuing to innovate and improve the FON experience for all our customers. More exciting product launches, like Prepaid WiFi for FON network, our pay-per-minute access product, and the La Fonera 2.0, our best WiFi router yet, are to come soon.
Follow Martin Varsavsky on Twitter: twitter.com/martinvars
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steven on February 7, 2009 ·
>70.000 BT Openzone (but only -3.000 BT FON)
>70.000 Neuf Wifi FON (but +500.000 Neuf Wifi)
= 140.000 partner hotspots
and +- 60.000 FONspots but I only cound those that give still a signal…when checking them out 50% can’t be found or connected to (bad signal/no working dhcp/…)
OLD: NEW
3euro/hour (SMS) 25 minutes
2euro/hour (visa)
3euro/day; 4.9euro/day
2euro/day for 5days 2.98euro/day
in a recent blogpost you said you received lot’s of criticism about the raised prices in oktober…it seems you are even increasing them some more now?
In the meanwhile the WISPR connectivity is still broken…after almost 6 months…
I’ve configured myplace now on my iphone/Nokia 5800Music Express/HTC touch…. it’s tiresome to enter every few minutes my emailadres & password
and my sip software breaks on it
the only thing that works on a FON_spot is google sites
nothing more 🙁
BTW no fonosfera present at FosDem; europe’s biggest open-source events … the openwrt booth was empty 🙁
I missed the 1 hour Luci presentation :(((
Jordi - FON on February 8, 2009 ·
@hasbeenfonero, we have adjusted prices to different currencies to fit recent fluctuations and other local considerations so there is no longer one price for all regions, but what you will see in most countries is that now it is cheaper for any visitor to use FON with new products like the 25min pass and the per minute payment that gets visitors the cheapest per-minute access cost ever, besides turning into a sharing Fonero of course 😉
Jordi – FON
Jordi - FON on February 8, 2009 ·
@steven, thanks for your comment but there is some misleading numbers on your info. Regarding Fonspots you are leaving out several of our ISP partners as ZON, Comstar or Livedoor which spots are shown and accessible to Foneros worldwide thru FonMaps. Moreover the number of Fonspots you use is outdated, we now have over 300K access points totally free for Foneros.
Regarding prices, from your comments I guess you are at FosDem in Belgium, if you connect to a Fonera there you will see that now you can get the 25min pass there for as low as €1.74.
About connection manager, most of the connection managers are working well even though we know the Symbian one is not working properly on some Symbian OS versions and we are workign to solve this too. You Mention Windows Mobile too, this one has been working great and we have many reports from Foneros that are using it succesfully, please contact me directly because it may be some device specific issue that we can try to address ( jordi at fon dot com). As you know handset devices, even with the same OS, sometimes behave a bit different.
And Finally, FonDem, we do have two of our BEST firmware developers at the event right there! 😉 Please email to John ( john.crispin at fon dot com) and you guys can go take some beers together so he can show you the F2.0 he is showing around.
Again thanks for the constructive criticism that helps us improve.
Jordi – FON
steven on February 8, 2009 ·
Hi,
The Openwrt Booth was empty…
The Presentation was very static; no examples; no screenshots…
But at 18h00 there was an openwrt hacknight but the captive portal gave a “service down” notice… so no one could connect on the captive portal 🙁
the only thing that worked was http://www.fon.com but I was the only one so it seems with a fon.com account; so no aliens or family&friends were possible 🙁
But I showed the Fonera NG and the AudioCLI plugin (with mp3/ntfs) and the 3G stuff… Not for the 300 people during the Openwrt event 13-14h (john crispin) but for the <10 people at the hacknight
Tested with Firefox on 3 different computers…
It was a Fonera 2.0
Perhaps next year FON could have a booth?
this year promotion doesn’t seem to be within budget…
Jordi - FON on February 8, 2009 ·
@steven, great that you meet William, he is our FON heart inside Mozilla 😀 and thank you for showing the AudioCLI plug and the 3G on Fonera 2.0!!! I think you are totally right next year we should be there with a booth, many of the guys doing stuff on the Fonosfera for Fonera 2.0 are there now. The FosDem is not over, get back to the party! 😉
Jordi – FON
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hasbeenfonero on February 7, 2009 ·
so, why don´t you tell us the (new old) prices of your product here? nobody takes you for serious any longer, worldwide!