2007 24
Why Have I Not Connected My Fonera Yet?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
FON doubled in size in the last 90 days and customer care is swamped. We have 4000 unanswered requests. I know this is going to sound crazy to Americans, but one of the reasons why we have such a backlog is that in Europe there are this extremely unusual data protection laws that make it hard (not impossible, but hard) to outsource customer care. This laws don´t allow a company to share its confidential data with another company who may, for example, provide customer care.
In the meantime I designed this little poll to understand the main problems that people who have not connected the Foneras are having around the world. A more formal e mail survey will be conducted by FON as the vast majority of the FONeros don´t know my blog.
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No Comments
euronerd on February 25, 2007 ·
Interesting picture. Where can I find it ?
LS on February 25, 2007 ·
Because I don’t know if FON is secure. I don’t see any WPA or WEP encryption.
Meo on February 25, 2007 ·
the better Question is, why could FON don’t help?!
ISPs:
FON as once says they would contact ISPs… Videoblitz as one of the Vienna Comunity has aked most of all Austrian ISPs and they had have never heard a sound about FON.
Support:
The FONsupport seems not to exist. Emails to the Support comes in 1 of 10 back with a automatic Message or even NOT. That means 9 of 10 Users don’t become even an Answer from FON.
Comunitysupport:
FON DON’t support the Comunity! That’s Fact!
I can only Talk from the German and the Austrian side, but Please think about that, and please Martin, make some Asskicks in the Support and the German Team 😉
Greez Meo
monster on February 25, 2007 ·
Videoblitz is right. That point is not clear relating to many german ISP.
Another point is, who is liable in case of abuse of my internetaccess? Will FON deliver the Log-Files completively and immediately? The view of german ISP is clear: I AM responsible for any abuse. And that makes me a little bit nervous…
Martín Varsavsky on February 25, 2007 ·
This is for those who may have problems connecting FON to the Xbox.
http://digg.com/apple/Apple_802_1n_Airport_Extreme_Xbox_360_Incompatibility_a_workaround
AustinTX on February 25, 2007 ·
(x) Other: I found the La Fonera AP unsuitable for my needs, as I cannot access my existing wired network through it (without hacking it). You built the La Fonera AP out of the Accton MR3201A. Build future versions out of the MR3202A.
Videoblitz on February 25, 2007 ·
Martin,
why should monster or I NOT be reliable in case of absue? the proscution authorities get only OUR IPs and so we are the first suspects. the next step will be, the authorites will secure the proofs (our IT equipment) and sometimes also arrest (reason “black-out danger”) the owner …
if you don’t believe me, please contact the austrian “Bundeskriminalamt” for additional information.
Jersey on February 25, 2007 ·
Hi Martin,
the abuse of my FON-Hotspot is done under my IP-Adress, so the police comes first into my house, searches trough all and takes away my computer.
So it’s not importand wether I’m responsible for the abuse or not, I will get into trouble in every case!
If I’m a linus, you should spend me a new computer, if my one is taken away from the police, because you make profit with my Bandwith. If I’m a bill, you have only pay the half of the price for my new computer, because I made profit too…
Regards, Jersey
Martín Varsavsky on February 25, 2007 ·
Meo,
you are right that Fon is a global network not an Austrian network and we don´t have a single employee in Austria, indeed we have around 10 doing customer care for the whole world. Fon is based on voluntarism that´s why we give the foneras for free. Regarding legalities see my latest post.
Martín Varsavsky on February 25, 2007 ·
Monster:
you are not responsible, Fon keeps records and will shows police if necessary that you are not responsible for illegal activity but somebody else was.
Videoblitz on February 26, 2007 ·
Martin:
don’t say no, if you don’t know what happened and can happen every time again – not only in austria, also in germany, france, spain and other countries!
the BKA (i have spoken with them last week!) DOESN’T know any contact (phone, fax) of your legal department to get immediatly logs or answeres to prevent a suspect (but innocent) Fonero to get into jail as it happend some weeks ago (operation “flo”).
Martin Varsavsky on February 26, 2007 ·
Sorry Videoblitz, but I don´t believe you. Austria is a democracy. If not the thousands of people in Austria who buy and leave Linksys or Netgear routers open are in much greater danger. At FON we keep records of who connects, surfing is not anonymous. FON is very safe.
Jean-Michel Garnier on February 26, 2007 ·
Martin, I did have problems to install my fonera last december (there was absolutely no signal!) but as I work in IT, I finally solved the problem by upgrading to the new firmware. The truth is, you will never encounter enough good geeks to be part of your customer care, I mean, your employees were very polite but I felt they miss a bit of experience …
Suggestion: why don’t you try to rely on foneros’ goodness and solidarity? There is something magic with Internet communities, we are all brothers ! I would not mind helping some foneros who live in the same town if I can receive something in exchange (glory, fun, a bit of money, whatever!!!)
Soy frances pero vivo en Barcelona. Sé que Fon tiene una oficina en Bcn, me encantaria echar una mano a FON porque odio tanto t*l*fonic* y sus hermanos que casi trabajaria gratis!!! Por ejemplo, se podria desarollar la red social de los foneros copiando la moda 2.0 pero menos funcionalidades (Less is More!)
Jean-Michel (15 años de informatica! Ruby on Rails wanabee)
Michael on February 27, 2007 ·
Martin,
here´s a link to the latest sentence concerning the liability of open hotspots and misuse by ohter users: http://www.heise.de/ct/06/20/052/
If you cannot make sure that you will keep free your foneros from claims of other parties (esp. music industry) due to misuse of the fon network, your concept will not succeed. This is the main constraint why many foneros don´t dare to open their access to the fonero community.
Greetings
Michael
Martín Varsavsky on February 27, 2007 ·
Michael,
as I said repeatedly Fon keeps records that show that if any illegal activity happens on a line it is NOT the responsibility of the Fonero. We have over 100,000 foneras connected, we get 20K more every month around the world and we have not had a single problem like this, not one.
But I see that a few people around the world are obsessed about this issue and keep writing about it. My answer, please do not join Fon, we don´t want people who will lose sleep over this, we want happy foneros.
Martín Varsavsky on February 27, 2007 ·
Michael,
as I said repeatedly Fon keeps records that show that if any illegal activity happens on a line it is NOT the responsibility of the Fonero. We have over 100,000 foneras connected, we get 20K more every month around the world and we have not had a single problem like this, not one.
But I see that a few people around the world are obsessed about this issue and keep writing about it. My answer, please do not join Fon, we don´t want people who will lose sleep over this, we want happy foneros.
Jersey on February 27, 2007 ·
Hi Martin,
I told the FON-idea to five persons, but only one of them said ‘yes’ to FON, and this only, because there is now a Linksys-Router between the LaFonera and the Internet. On this Linksys, a good Firewall is running and blocks all P2P-Traffic and all requets for ‘suspicious’ words…
The other four persons gave me only one fast and short answear: To dangerous for me in the case of abuse. Can you afford to kick off these 80% of possible new foneros? Ok, perhaps I was not lucky with my five persons, but I think, that FON could expand its increasing from 20K per month to 60K per month, if you would make FON save for the foneros… The idea of FON is great, but does not run in the optimum(in my opinion).
Best Regards,
Jersey
Eric on July 23, 2007 ·
Hello,
I would like inform you of my fonera problem, the fonera comes set with certain settings, one is set in channel two, I have the skype 100 phone from smc and the phone only will pick up on channel 1,6,11, also i have tried everything, thier is new firmware out, that last three numbers that the fon comes with is .17p1, the new version is .19F1, Actually my smc cell phone wont even connect with an open network in the airport.
Hope you have answers because fon and smc never could figure out the problem.
thanks,
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Videoblitz on February 24, 2007 ·
One important choice is missing at the polling:
I found out, that my ISP don’t allow third parties to use my Internet Access.