2005 9
The Californian Paradox
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Right now, i’m in the famous Silicon Valley. The cradle of the internet. I’m having lots of meetings with legendary venture capital firms, with WiFi access point makers and with the giants of the internet. In each one of these meetings, i try out the internet connections that people use here and i come to the mind-boggling conclusion that internet connections here are REALLY BAD. Seriously, people here surf at speeds that we were used to in Spain back in 2000. I am astonished to see that the people who design the most advanced software, websites and hardware, surf at internet speeds not much faster than a dial-up modem. While in the Valley inquired why internet was so slow and I always got the same answer: that it’s due to the fixed line operator monopoly in the US where you have 1 or 2 main net providers per city seemingly colluding. Interestingly, in Europe, there is a lot of competition among fixed line operators and very little with mobile operators. Here, it’s the contrary, mobiles are much cheaper (terrible quality though) but fixed phone lines have smaller bandiwths and are very expensive. Clearly, this is not Sweden where Labs2 amazed me with their 1 Gig bandwidth for only 89 euros.
2005 3
How many foneros do we need to have global wifi coverage?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
People who are interested in sharing excess bandwidth at home or work and obtaining bandwidth elsewhere have found in FON the right free wifi roaming platform and are downloading our software. But is FON doable? How many broadband connections do we need for FON to provide reliable wifi signal around the world? Surprisingly not that many. Nowadays the largest hotspot networks, T Mobile, Boingo, The Cloud, Orange, Vodafone, have fewer than 20,000 hotspots each. FON just launched and we have had over 1000 downloads in a week. That is 5% of the largest wifi hotspot networks. Skype to give an example of a much more established platform has around 150,000 downloads per day for a total so far of 200 million according to their site. But while FON is more complicated than Skype to download many less foneros are needed for FON to give a great wifi experience than skyperos to give Skype a great user experience. For Skype to succeed millions of people need to be on Skype. But one fonero can give coverage to half a city block and that is equivalent to thousands of people who live or pass by. Our estimates are that 1 million foneros around the world or around 1% of the people would be enough to give a global wifi signal. An ambitious but reachable goal.
2005 3
Will FON work in my Router?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Here´s a list of many routers. The key about FON is that it work on wifi routers that are LINUX based. In this link you find more information. That a router may work with FON does not mean that it works with the current download. FON is a new company and we launched with only Linksys Linux enabled routers. But it is our objective to go through the list of the most popular Linux enabled routers and have them available to foneros around the world.
2005 1
Vive la France!
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
As I prepare to attend Les Blogs in Paris next Monday and launch FON in France, I read the wonderful news that France has acted and fined its three mobile operators the astonishing amount of 534 million euros.
2005 26
From O2 to FON: meet Diego Cabezudo
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Please welcome Diego Cabezudo, whom we’ve hired to be our COO. Diego left Ireland where he worked at O2 to return to his home country and join FON. We’re really excited to have him on board.
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2005 25
Ignacio Escolar Jail Scare
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Ignacio Escolar, a Spanish journalist wrote a poorly researched article arguing that foneros in Spain could go to jail for two years for downloading our software (links in my Spanish blog). While Spain does have a law that says that people who download content and resell it for profit could be punish with up to a two year prison term, Ignacio Escolar wrongly thought this law, made for the movie industry, could apply to people who share wifi or resell wifi. If this were true, there would be a lot of people in jail at Boingo, T Mobile, Eurospot…
2005 25
What about the Bills?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Bills, we owe you, I know. Like we said many times in the past, the WiFi revolution needs both the socialists (the Linuses) and the “free marketeers” (the Bills). For now, perhaps unfairly, only Linuses can use FON. But what I can say to the Bills (who are waiting to set up their router and place their antena where they can catch lots of Aliens ready to pay for a connection) is that we are working very hard to set up a secure system for the Bill option to operate smoothly and safely.
Luckily, we’re not the ones who invented the idea of having a hotspots and charging users of these hotspots. Spain has 1000 charging hotspots and Europe has more than 25,000, so there are systems already tried and tested that we’re adapting. But “For when?” you ask. January 15th seems to be a reasonable date. Today, if you are a Bill you can install the firmware and sign up as a Bill as soon the Bill option is ready.
Now, who should be a Bill? If you own a bar, a restaurant, a hotel, a pharmacy, a laundro-mat, a newspaper kiosk, or if you live in a place where lots of tourists pass by, then you should be a Bill. We’re currently testing directional WiFi antenas that increase your WiFi coverage (perfect for parks!) and we’re also in talks with super Bills. Super Bills are entrepreneurs who want to invest in routers and place them in public places and then share their revenue with FON and the owners of these public places, so that the latter don’t have to buy routers themselves.
2005 25
Fon.com…
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
…is finally in English!! Now all English speaking foneros can download our software and share wifi with other foneros around the world. FON is free wifi roaming… provided that you agree to share some of your excess bandwidth at home/work. If you are a capitalist fonero, a Bill in our lingo, you will have to wait for another month until you can start milking your wifi. So far we are only functioning in the Linus modality, creating a global pool of shared bandwidth through a simple piece of Linux software. Now this is a BETA. Please report all bugs, typos, and spanglish to teo@fon.es. And we will soon support brands other than Linksys.
BTW we welcome all wifi access point manufacturers to adapt our software to your access points and release it publicly.
2005 25
Joichi Ito joins FON´s American Board
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Joi Ichi Ito, one of the world’s most popular bloggers, accepted to join FON’s advisory board for North America. Joi is originally from Japan but grew up in the US. His blog is in english and it’s fascinating. Joi is one of the leading figures of the blog movement both as a blogger and founders of Six Apart. One of the things I really admire in Joi is his ability to start companies that generate social value and are profitable at the same time.
An interesting detail: this blog is designed with the software Joi’s company created: MoveableType. So while Joi becomes a fonero, I blog using his software.
2005 24
FON: the Napster of WiFi
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I just heard that a journalist from a Spanish television channel said that FON is the Napster of Wifi. Being a Napster fan, I see the analogy.
With FON, a user pays his/her bandwidth at home and can enjoy bandwidth wherever there are other foneros. With Napster, you pay $10 a month and you can download as much music as you want, regardless of where you are. Since I love music, I really prefer Napster to iTunes. iTunes, with its pay-per-song system, works for people who like listening to the same song over and over again. I prefer the variety that Napster gives me. When you think of it, $10 is really peanuts for the amount of music Napster gives you access to.