2007 6
FrancoFON’s software for la Fonera
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
In this video, Guillaume Valet of FrancoFON, a very well organized community of French foneros, shows me how the software they developed for la Fonera works. Basically, the software allows la Fonera to create a bridge by which it can turn any encrypted WiFi signal into a FON WiFi signal. We will test this software thoroughly and most likely incorporate it in the Fonera firmware. Thank you FrancoFon!!!
UPDATE : I forgot to mention that the “bridge” functionality i talk about in the video (which enables la fonera to become a WiFi repeater) was actually developed by Antonio Anselmi, of Italy, who worked with FrancoFON to integrate his “ponte” on their firmware. Sorry for that and congrats again to Antonio and FrancoFON for the great job in bringing new features to the FON firmware !
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Daniel on October 6, 2007 ·
You might as well check out the FreeWLAN.ino add-ons for the Fonera. http://trac.freewlan.info/
(Disclaimer: I’m one on of the FreeWLAN.info add-on developer.)
Daniel on October 6, 2007 ·
Oh yeah: And how about enabling an easy way to install these addons?
dema on October 7, 2007 ·
Perhaps the guys at francofon forgot to tell that Ponte script has been made by Antonio Anselmi since last April . Not really new stuff.
Also , Antonio went further , and in his project page http://www.blogin.it/index.php you can find ROBIN for the development of a 0 configuration mesh network with Foneras. ROBIN is hot Martin , believe me. Imagine to have a neighborhood to cover with wifi as you already made in Chueca. With conventional setup you need to attach every fonera to an internet gateway. With ROBIN you can create a mesh of wireless fonspots , extending the range without needing an internet gateway in every node. Plus the mesh network is flexible and can fix the routing table according to network load or failure of a single hop.
I’m a little angry with people in Francofon , since they didn’t mention the great job made by my fellow Antonio.
One last thing Martin , did you know that to install Francofon or other third party pieces of software into la fonera you need to hack it ?
dfr on October 7, 2007 ·
Hi Dema,
did you ever install FrancoFON scripts before being a little angry ?
If you did that you could see that Antonio is cited.
I worked with Antonio to integrate ponte and we are still discussing with him.
Please, stop this stupid polemic. It sounds like jalousy 🙁
dema on October 7, 2007 ·
@pm2036 I would appreciate if was Martin to reply , since my comments and my questions were directed to him . But anyway …
1) noted that credits to Anselmi has been put in the control panel of wireless bridge section of Francofon . But in this post isn’t mentioned and neither in two videos , both english and spanish one
2)Robin is now working only breaking fon chillispot auth it’s true. But last time I heard from Antonio , he was working to put chillispot captive portal in every node of batman mesh .
3)If Martin knows that to install enhancements to la fonera it needs to hack , or through code injection or through serial console , why to keep it close ?
4) I didn’t insult anybody , why you want to start calling me stupid ?
Saludos
Anton
PJMDS on October 8, 2007 ·
Dema is right, Martin talked about the bridge mode and only mentions francofon, all the credit behing that feature is due to Antonio Anselmi, why francofon taked all the credit in Martin video ? you where there when martin made the video you should first talked to martin about who made the bridge scripts.
Francofon should take credit in other cool and useful features not the bridge mode, if Martin is humble enough he should make another video giving credit to Antonio for the bridge and showing other features in francofon made by francofon.
Best regards
vatera blogatis on October 8, 2007 ·
just for understanding right: does the ponte2-bridge-fonera receive the signal via an encrpyted wep2 (or like that) signal and re-distribute both, a >FON_xxx Signal and ALSO a my_place signal too or only a FON_xxx signal without a my_place signal. that means: am i able to install some sort of “hopping” signals , from fonera.. to fonera… to fonera .. to fonera… (not regarding loss of data-velocity).. am i right?? i really don´t know. this really has not come clear to me
Henrik on October 9, 2007 ·
I think mesh capability would be THE killer application for LaFonera 2.0… No more need of a wired connection between your ISP router and multiple Foneras for a full coverage of all your rooms, no Powerlan Adapters… simply a self organizing mesh cloud of foneras. Even load balancing between multiple foneras with lanside Internet Link could be inplemented to give a better performance in usage hot zones like in Madrid, Berlin or New York, where multiple Fonera signals are overlapping. Instead of a infrastructure mode Fon WLAN could opperate like a cellular provider for mobile phones. No need to scan and switch between radio sites, everything would go smoothly. This would be the best way to fulfil Fon’s motto: Free Wifi, everywhere.
Charbax on October 9, 2007 ·
This sounds extremely huge. What if the Fonera router could be bought directly from the FON connection page by any nabour who can see the FONspot. So they pay for example 20€ for the router, maybe 50% of that revenue goes to the original FONspot owner. Now when that nabour receives the FON router, he simply has to plug it in to the electricity and maybe also fix the Fontenna on the window and this way that nabour would eigther get free low bitrate unlimited account on FON or would get a reduction on the prices of his FON passes based on the additionnal revenue generated by that users expansion of the FONspot through this bridge. There could be somekind of exact calculation that would require the nabour to cover an area at a certain distance of the original FONspot. Maybe poiting the FOntenna in another direction might be enough, but preferably, the nabour should for example live at least 50 meters away from the original FONspot.
FON earns more money cause the FONspot gets bigger and stronger. The FONspot originator earns more money cause his bigger FONspot provides him with more revenue, even though bridged FONspots don’t need to provide the same % of revenue to the FONspot originator. The nabour installing the bridge gets cheaper FON passes, maybe generates enough extra FON connections to earn a totally free FON access, eigther limited in bitrate, or unlimited depending on the throttling setup by the FONspot originator. The ISP earns more money also cause their WiFi coverage being bigger, they can claim a larger share from revenue sharing as well as people are more incited to use broadband and WiFi generating more demand for broadband connections.
Daniel on October 9, 2007 ·
@8: I don’t know if this is possible with ponte2/francofon, but it is possible with the FreeWLAN.info Add-ons.
Martin Varsavsky on October 9, 2007 ·
Hi Henrik,
I am not as enthusiastic as you for meshing, but that does not mean that I am not enthusiastic at all. It all depends on the operating environment. If ADSL/Cable connections are rare meshing is great. But in the UK where we partnered with BT we don´t really need meshing.
Martin Varsavsky on October 9, 2007 ·
Daniel! Will check them out. Thanks!
jdawg on January 19, 2008 ·
Has anyone heard if this feature will be added to the La Fonera?
Henrik on January 21, 2008 ·
Yes, there are modded firemwares out there with great meash capabilities: Look at http://blogin.it/ to get a first impression.
Donat on May 27, 2008 ·
“most likely incorporate it in the Fonera firmware. Thank you FrancoFon!!!”
8 months ago, nothing happened.. why? when will these functions be available…. or is it much more “unlikely” now ?
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Pablo Moreno Galbis on October 6, 2007 ·
Watching the video I couldn’t stop thinking about how funny Franco FON sounds for a spaniard!
Pretty cool functionality, and even cooler apartment!