2005 4
FON in France
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On December 5th, FON will be launched in France, during the “Les Blogs” conference hosted by Loïc Lemeur. I’m pleased to introduce to you Yann Mauchamp, who will be leading FON in France. Yann is currently the manager of OpenBC in France.
There’s a lot of interest in FON here in France. Mobile calling rates are even higher than in Spain. For example, a call using a pre-paid card costs 48c/min in Spain compared to 55c/min in France. Being a Linus and using your WiFiFON for free while at the same time enjoying free roaming all across France is very attractive for FON members in France. It looks like here, we’re also going to have more Linuses than Bills, but France is another country filled with Aliens, more than in Spain, and people who live in areas where there a lot of Aliens want to be Bills. Indeed, to have an antena directed towards the street or a hotel, to have 50% of your bandwidth reserved for you and to be able to charge each Alien who connects to your access point is very attractive for many here as well.
2005 3
Fonero Leaders in Sweden, France, and Argentina
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We already have three FONERO leaders outside of Spain. They have been selected out of 42 candidates from 17 countries. They are Yann Mauchamp in France. Hilarion Del Olmo in Argentina and Ola Ahlvarsson in Sweden. We will launch FON at SIME in Stockholm on Nov 10th. We will start FON in Spain at SIMO on Nov 15th and we will launch in France at Les Blogs on Dec 5th. We still don´t have a start up date for Argentina. We are waiting to make decisions on other countries although we have amazing leaders from USA, for example. The FON proposition is simple: a software download that turns your wifi into a hotspot to be shared with other foneros. In this way you will continue paying for bandwidth at home but have bandwidth both at home and throughout your country. The execution of the FON strategy however is not so simple and that´s why we need FONERO leaders who can spread the message locally. 2006 will be the year of the wifi gadgets. Other than laptops and pda´s we will see wifi ipod type devices, wifi playstations, nintendo revolution, wifi phones or wifi digital cameras. But what are all those good for without a wifi nation? Get your toys out of your bath tub! Join FON.
2005 3
List of all the routers that will work with FON
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FON software is open source. We are inviting anyone interested to improve the software. Here’s a list of all the routers that will work with FON a couple of months from now. Basically, to work with FON, a router has to be a sort of mini Linux computer.
2005 2
The Linksys WRT54G is ready to go!
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We officially have the first version of the FON software running smoothly. The access point it works with today is the Linksys WRT54G. This model is sold in most computer stores, including FNAC and PC CIty. Why this model? Because it works with open source software and it’s great quality. If you already have this model, you’ll just have to download the FON software, connect your Linksys, install the software onto your Linksys and convert into a FON access point. All this is going to be explained in detail in the FON website. If you don’t already have a WiFi connection, we recommend you buy this model in any store or you can buy one from FON on our website. If you buy it from us, you’ll have it already configured and ready to go. Obviously, it’s not great news for some that FON only works with Linksys right now, but rest assured, in less than 4 months, FON will work with many more models. To make up for this, we’re thinking of how we can make Aliens pay Bills and Linuses without FON pocketing anything, until the price of the units bought is amortized.
2005 31
Bill, don’t worry about Linuses…
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I received an email from a Bill today who told me he didn’t want to let any Linuses surf the internet through his access point (AP). I asked him to look at the problem from a “probability” perspective and told him the following:
In one year alone, around one million WiFi enabled devices were sold in Spain, mostly laptops with Centrino chips. In addition, every year there are as many tourists who come to Spain as there are inhabitants, and most of those 40 million tourists come from countries where there are many more WiFi devices per capita than in Spain. So from this perspective, it might be better for you to focus more on potential clients rather than on Linuses. Indeed, as soon as you connect your AP to the FON network, you’ll have 5000 Linuses who can theoretically surf the internet for free using your connection. But this is peanuts compared to the 5 million users who will be able to pay you for using your AP. Another point to bear in mind is that Linuses have WiFi at home and share their WiFi for free but if they do use your connection, it is temporary, they will not be leeches and stay put. Remember, a Linus has WiFi in his/her house, an Alien doesn’t. A FON member chooses to be a Linus because she/he wants or is willing to share WiFi to be able to roam for free and help create a WiFi nation. And don’t worry about the Linus who will try to clone him/herself, because a Linus can have as many passwords as he wants inside his house but can only have one outside. So again, if a Linus connects to your AP, remember that it’s temporary and occasional. And one last important point: your AP is also a port of entry for Aliens to use the FON network, not just to use your AP. Through your AP, say an Alien buys 24 hours of access on FON. Well you pocket 50% of what he or she paid. And now, say you want to roam a bit, well you can sell yourself FON access through your own AP and it will cost you 50% less than what an Alien would pay (because you pocket 50% of what you paid!). In other words, as a Bill, you will be able to charge users while at the same time roam at half price.
In the end, Bills and Linus will be best of friends. Bills will like Linuses because they help increase network coverage and thus make FON more attractive to Aliens. Linuses will love Bills because they can use their APs for free!
2005 30
Sometimes chaos is better than order
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I was thinking this morning why it was that Swisscom, Telefonica and T-Online, who have tried to set up their own WiFi networks, failed in their endeavour and why I think FON will be successful at it.
The best explanation I came up with is that chaos is sometimes better than order. Let me explain: a telecom engineer would never plan the kind of network FON is going to have. When you see that thousands of volunteers who have signed up and sent us their email addresses, objectively, the FON network can be seen as chaotic and random.
An engineer who designs networks for a telecom wants the best possible coverage with the smallest number of access points and won’t even try to aim for coverage where there is no market. At FON, however, we are putting in motion a movement in which access points that already exist all sync together and form a same network. Telecoms as we know them work like governments and we work like civil society. What is our advantage? The same advantage the market has over planning. Juantomás García puts it this way: “Imagine you had to plan the distribution of all the food that enters Manhattan in one day. Not even the most efficient government could plan the distribution of the amazing variety of Japanese, Chinese, Italian, French, Jewish, Latino, Oriental and North American food that is eaten every day in the Big Apple. Millions of individuals taking individual decisions are the ones who make it happen.”. This is why, with extremely basic marketing (basically, this blog and other blogs), without any internet infrastructure and with very simple but very clever software, FON will be able to build what billions of dollars spent by telecoms couldn’t: a WiFi nation.
In Spain, there’s already broadband for everyone, the problem is that it’s very badly distributed. To give and to receive (Linuses) or to share and to charge (Bills) is the solution to this absurd situation. From chaos, we can reach order.
2005 30
FON in schools
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Jorge Gant shared with us a particularly good idea. Apparently, most schools in Spain are connected to the internet but very few use WiFi. Jorge’s idea is that parents, professors and students who are FON members should install FON access point in schools. By placing access points near windows, professors and students can use their laptops in and around their school. This way, not only can schools save a lot money on cabling and internet access, but the Internet, as a learning tool, becomes accessible in every classroom.
2005 30
Bills are like bloggers with AdSense
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Many “Bill” FON members are asking us how we will pay Bills. The idea is to use a system very similar to the one currently used by Google with AdSense.
AdSense is an advertising system in which webmasters cede space on their web pages to Google, which Google uses to advertise using hyperlinks. If you’re a regular internet surfer, you must have seen hundreds of pages using this system. Google sells the advertising and then gives a percentage to the webmaster. Advertisers contact Google and pay Google to post their ads.
So in terms of how FON pays Bills: FON is like Google, Bills are like the webmasters and Aliens are like the advertisers.
If you are a Bill, all you will have to do is convert your access point into a FON access point, agree to the terms of the contract and begin earning money. The whole process will be online and will take about 5 minutes. If you’re already a webmaster using Google ads, then, you already have an idea of how Bills will get paid by FON.
2005 27
The linchpins of FON
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People have been wondering who is behind FON’s software and systems development. Well, I’d like to introduce our outsourcing company, Kynetia, one of those Spanish companies that are doing so well around the world thanks to their creativity, know-how and incredibly talented staff.
Kynetia, led by Jorge Pascual, is working on the FON download (that will be ready for the SIMO fair in Madrid on November 15) as well as on the FON systems (that, as I’ve already mentioned earlier, will be operational for Linuses first). Speaking of which, who could have thought of a better newcomer to the FON movement than Juantomas Garcia – president of Hispalinux. Today, we had a long meeting with Juantomas, who is not only a brilliant individual but is someone brimming with great ideas. He knows a lot about security and he’s making sure that FON will be as secure as possible.
I’ll also use this opportunity to welcome Teófilo, who will join the FON crew next week. Teofilo wrote me not too long ago and I was very impressed by his presentation, and more particularly, by his blog. Nowadays, your blog is your best CV. We invited him to join us and he’s moving from Sevilla to work with us.
Last but not least, I’d like to thank Fabiana Paredes from Romero Victorica, Argentina, who is behind FON’s corporate image. She and her team, who are thousands of kilometers away, are doing an amazing job of capturing and conveying the FON spirit.