2005 21
Ideas for services using the FON network
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
One of the things that I love about starting FON is not only the idea of building a wifi nation, but also all the opportunities this opens up. Every day, I receive tons of ideas from enthusiastic FON volunteers. Some are already thinking of producing content for WiFi TV. Others seem more interested in e-commerce, like the one I’ve attached at the bottom of this post.
What I want to make clear is that FON is not like Vodafone, Movistar or Organge in the sense that, contrary to these, we are not going to charge people for using our network. The strength of the FON network lies in its collaborative effort, and we invite all those who have ideas for FON services to share their ideas on this blog or on the web. The more orginal ideas that surface, the better!
2005 21
FON and questions about security
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Some people are writing telling me they’re a little preoccupied with the security issue when using FON. For me, worrying about this is really unnecessary. If we want absolute security for our computers, then we simply shouldn’t connect them to the internet nor should we leave our computer in a place where a burglar can break in and steal your hard drive. But for those who accept to live with a tiny bit of risk when surfing the internet, FON will actually increase security in the WiFi world. Let me explain.
First of all, a quick recap of the WiFi world in numbers: according to our studies, 35% of the wifi networks in Spain are open, which, in theory, any criminal can anonymously enter and hack. What FON does is that it asks its members to identify themselves and we give them a username and password that works with their access point, and, if they’re, Linuses, that they can use on other FON access points everywhere. In this way, only FON members will be able to connect to FON access points. To be sure, it makes the anonymous entry of a criminal into the FON network difficult. Compared to anonymous prepaid mobiles, this is much safer. And with today’s WiFi as well.
2005 14
Launching FON: The Power of Blogging
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Last Saturday I started FON. It´s been the craziest 6 days of my business life. And my business life is not short. I started Viatel, Jazztel and Ya.com. But in those three cases the launch itself was not an event. I don´t remember the actual first week of Viatel. I had the idea in 1990, a sort of virus that reverted the calling patterns of international telecom networks and gave foreigners US dial tone. It was a big idea, but it took me maybe a year of hard labor to get to the level of global awareness that I have achieved in 6 days with FON through my blog. And it took 10 years and a great team effort for the company to be worth over $1bn.
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2005 9
Share WIFI, build a WIFI Nation
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
I started FON, my new company in Spain. This is my third telecom/internet company in this country of 44 million people. I started Jazztel in 1998, today Spain´s second largest publicly traded telecom operator, and Ya.com, today Spain´s second largest internet site after Terra. But while Jazztel and Ya.com are very local, FON can be very global, like Skype. FON is the P2P of WIFI and I want to find the best way to launch FON around Europe and the rest of the world.
What is FON? Very simple. At FON we developed a software client that you download from the net and you install it in your wifi base station. At that moment your wifi gives you a password of your choice, but starts accepting all the other passwords of all the other FON members. FON is based on the premise that, with wifi now being 54MB on cable and DSL platforms of 1MB or more, wifi users are only taking advantage of 3% of their capacity on the average. Or in other words, wasting 97% of their capacity. At the same time, what users want is for their laptops, PDAs, wifi phones, and soon wifi enable ipods or wifi enable digital cameras, to access to everyone else´s wifi so they can walk around cities taking pictures, listening to music, playing games on wifi playstations, etc. And this we accomplish by turning millions of wifi installations into a unified wifi FON network with a standard interface to accept all kind of wifi enabled devices.
So what do I need? I have the funds to launch FON in other countries. I also have the software and the ad campaigns. What I need is local entrepreneurs/managers who want to launch FON in their countries. Also FON will have much more value if it´s global. Want to join me? Do write to me through this site. Tell me about your background and local resources. By the way, even though “FON” sounds like telecoms, FON is a tribe in Africa (google it) and joining FON is like becoming a member of a bandwidth sharing tribe. How do we make money doing this? Contact me and I will let you know.
I live in Spain. United States spends more money in its armed forces per year than the GDP of Spain, a prosperous European country of 44 million people. When I look at how much the United States devotes to “defend” itself and I read an article in today´s New York Times, that says that the United States ” is woefully unprepared for what could become the worst disaster in the nation’s history” meaning FLU, I wonder what´s happening to US spending priorities. Does it make sense to spend a trillion dollars in armaments and not spend enough in flu vaccines? The 381 pages report that the New York Times writes about predicts widespread violence at vaccination clinics resulting from a vaccine shortage. How can Bill Gates personally be paying for vaccinating millions of Africans while the US Government is not paying for flu vaccines for its own citizens? When is the United States going to realize that the biggest danger to its nation is not Islamic terrorism but hurricanes, epidemics, earthquakes, and other natural disasters? I think it´s time that United States realizes that its most dangerous enemies are not PEOPLE, but NATURE. More precisely, nature attacked by humanity, with its main aggressor, in terms of carbon emissions and global warming, being the United States itself. As I write this, I know that many people in the United States realize this. Unfortunately they only made 47% of the electorate last time around. Hopefully damage will be contained and a new president with the environment in mind will be elected in 2008. I frequently wonder what would have happened to the world if Al Gore had been given his true mandate in 2000. I have no doubt that the United States and the world would be a different, better, safer place.
2005 3
Fundamentalist Atomic Bombs
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Nuclear weapons make me nervous. Ideally I would like to see all the megatons in the world converted to megawatts, peacefully generating electricity for all of us for years to come. Yes, I am in favor of nuclear energy and I prefer a world of cheap megawatts than of dangerous megatons. Now on to Iran.
In a neighborhood in which Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia and many others have nuclear weapons, I tend to understand that the Iranians want to have them as well. Still, it does make me especially nervous to see nuclear weapons in the hands of fundamentalists. To me there are mainly two kinds of religious people: those who are simply religious and believe in a perfect God followed by imperfect human beings, and those who are fundamentalists and believe in a perfect God followed by perfect human beings who got it right (while everyone else got it wrong). The Iranians make part of the latter group. So does Al Qaida.
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2005 2
Wifi Nation?
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in Fon with No Comments
Wifi rocks. When you are within reach nothing beats Wifi. Wimax is not around the corner, it will take years to develop, and if and when it comes it will need a new generation of devices to go along with it. And that is years away as most devices now are going Wifi. The Wifi iPod is around the corner, Wifi digital cameras as well, Playstations with Wifi are all the rage, PDA´s are mostly Wifi enabled now and so are all laptops. Now the paradox about Wifi is that every operator who has tried to build a Wifi network has failed miserably. Nobody seems to have the funds to create a Wifi national network. So coverage is uneven, and that´s the only thing that´s wrong with Wifi. How can we create a Wifi nation? That is the challenge.
2005 2
US Democrats: People Who Want Things to Stay the Same
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I am a progressive. In the US I identify with the democrats. Over the last two US elections I have watched in pain as Bush defeated Gore and Kerry. How could America elect such a conservative leader? I wondered. But after attending the Clinton Global Initiative two weeks ago in New York City and listening to some token right wingers who were invited to attend I realized that things have changed. Nowadays, it is the Democrats who are conservatives, in the sense that it is them who want things to stay the same, and paradoxically it is the republicans, traditionally seen as conservatives, who want things to change, sometimes radically. Abortion is legal, they want to change that. Prayer is not allowed at schools, they want that changed as well. Evolution is seen as the only accepted science, they don´t buy that. There´s one rule in politics, people who want things to change organize themselves better than people who want things to stay the same. For example, creationists are well organized, evolutionists (who probably make 100% of the biology teachers in the world), are not. Why are you going to organize to fight for what you have? I think that people of a democratic spirit in America will begin to wake up only when they realize that their status quo…is no longer.
Both in Europe and America the press tends to be more progressive, or leftist, than the rest of the population. In America, conservatives have been very good at mounting a counterattack on the liberal media, but the liberal media still has the upper hand. The country votes republican, the media overall is democratic. Why is this the case? To me this is simply a function of income. Start giving journalists investment banking salaries and they would certainly write more conservative articles! As it is they make very little money, and empathize with other people who do as well.
2005 27
My Own Freakonomics: Oil Prices in Europe and America
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
Here is my first contribution to Freakonomics. It relates to gasoline prices. I was recently in the States and read articles, one that emphasized that while in America consumers were very concerned about the rise in the price of gasoline, in Europe people were less worried. In the article there were many unusual theories as to why this may be the case.
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