2006 21
Begging for WiFi
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Sailing around the Mediterranean I find myself begging for WiFi at every port. I do have 3G but not only is it many times not available, as in Montenegro for example, but when it is available (as in Italy) it is extremely expensive to roam on it, and, what´s worse, it´s too slow and frequently fails. As a result I find myself begging for WiFi, hoping I can find WiFi signals that I can use and more than anything hoping that FON really becomes a global success. Share excess bandwidth at home and roam the world for free becomes especially useful when you go on vacation. Right now I finally did find one open wifi network and I felt I had to blog it. I am so thankful to the owner of this open access point whoever he or she is….
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No Comments
isaacb on August 21, 2006 ·
Unfortunetly we can not go on holidays and roam on FON yet. We have to wait a bit for that. On my case I have travelled with my FON router to hook it up to a very SLOW Verizon DSL connection in the north of the Dominican Republic and give access to those that can not have access too the net.
But… I couldnt make it work! 🙁
I need WIFI!
Lukketto on August 23, 2006 ·
Do you know that in Italy the owner of the line (adsl,dialup etc) is responsible of all that starts from his router/modem?
Do you know that the use of FON in Italy is forbidden by italian laws? and that you can’t share your adsl?
How do you think to overcome these obstacles?
Thanks.
Luca
Martin Varsavsky on August 25, 2006 ·
Luca,
There were plenty of hotspots in Italy and now there are plenty of FON hotspots in Italy.
Regards,
Lukketto on August 26, 2006 ·
Hi Martin,
thanks for your reply. I know of the presence of hotspots in Italy and I know about your partnership with an italian provider but, because of italian laws about terrorism, many people don’t share their ADSL and they are scared to use FON to have not troubles with the police. I’m very interested about the idea to use the mobile phones as a way to identify fon-users, this could be a breakthrough more than, IMHO, a new router. Did you try to contact any italian politicians to discuss it?
Regards
PS: If you want we can continue via e-mail.
freechelmi on August 28, 2006 ·
Hey martin , if you had a break in Marseille, you could have use the wifi access we installed that cover most of the old haven. We get a lot of people in their boats who are really enjoying the service because it’s FREE, it does not cost a peny to us ( http://marseille-wireless.org ) just time spent, internet connectivity is given by the haven authority.
This is the big difference with you FON, the revolution where most of the people will pay for access that could be given away.
Anyway, you can be part of the FREE & gratis netwok worldwide access http://freenetworks.org
and then http://france.freenetworks.org/ if you come to france …
What a pity ! But carry on foneros, an Martin will by a new bigger boat 🙂 , just kidding ..
Martin Varsavsky on August 28, 2006 ·
Freechelmi,
I am in favor of all WiFi, but FON is free to all of those who donate which I think is fair. Those who don´t pay 3 or 2 euros per day, also reasonable. And in this way we grow and grow.
Regards,
Hans-Peter Bock on September 1, 2006 ·
Hello Martin,
yesterday I arrived at home again after travelling for about two weeks around ireland. Most of the hostels I stayed in had some internet stations that could be used for a small amount of money, some even for free. Unfortunately not all of these internet stations had installed advanced software like an ssh-client, skype, openvpn, etc. All these software, that you have installed on your wireless laptop were of no use, since there was no hotspot and no possibility to plug them into the network.
Wouldn’t it be a great idea, to offer all hostels free fon routers, so that they can provide internet access for all backpackers with a wireless laptop?
Best regards, Hans-Peter
freechelmi on September 2, 2006 ·
@martin :
I understand your point of view as an enterpreneur, but as you grow , cities will be uncoumbered with 3epd hotspots whereas this could have been freenetworks open to everyone like in montreal or berlin…..
Software is ready but routers are not cheap ( 60 euros ) as you give them for 17 euros, fon network will grow, but only the fon shareholders will win at last ….. not people who really need it …
hope your 80000 hotspots will generate good revenues ..
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Ray on August 21, 2006 ·
he/she should have billed you. 😉
The signal is part of the huge “default” WiFi corporation, isn’t it?