Thursday, January 26, 2006

FON USA Launch

Today I spoke at ETel about FON in America. I was only given 15 minutes and there is so much I wanted to say that I just didn't have time to.

For example, I didn't talk about the ability we are building into FON that will allow one FON hotspot to share documents, files, and bandwidth another FON hotspot nearby in a mesh manner.

I didn't talk about out commitment to bring Wi-Fi to communities that need it, places like Harlem in NYC and the less advantaged areas of Paris.

I didn't talk about the social networking component. The ability for each hotspot to have a home page that the user can personalize. So you can say "if you are in my neighborhood, check out this cafe across the street that has the best espresso in NYC!" And the ability for users to be able to send you thank you notes. This isn't in the system now, but its in the 6 month road map.

I also said that Martin laid down trans-atlantic fiber, I don't think thats true. But it is true that he laid fiber across europe.

Anyway, enough of my disclamer, why don't you listen to the FON USA launch yourself.

Christine Herron, Stuart Henshall at SkypeJournal and Alec Saunders blogged about the talk.

Posted by Ejovi on General
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Monday, January 23, 2006

WiFi Everywhere

A new promotional ad, check out the FON store

Posted by Ejovi on Business
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Friday, January 20, 2006

WiFiFON and 3G

At PTC there was a plenary panel with the director of Marketing for Qualcomm, his name was...let me find his business card...Jeffrey K. Belk, SVP Marketing. Jeffrey made some very good points about how WiMax is over hyped. He wrote a really interesting whitepaper on WiMax/WiFi and 3G. I only read through it very quickly (it was written by a marketing guy after all) but the gist is that WiFi / WiMax isn't going to replace 3G networks.

He is right. Maybe when WiMax is REALLY ready in 3 years or so we can talk about the likelihood 3G being replaced but we are a long ways from that point. WiFi is a hotspot technology. You have to go to a spot to use it, while 3G networks have a lot more coverage. But that doesn't mean WiFi is irrelevant to the cellular business. WiFi is cheap. 3G is great for reach but bad for throughput and cost. WiFi is poor for reach but great for throughput and cost. The two will co-exist. When WiMax is ready FON will use that, but right now I am really excited about 802.11N and its expanded coverage ability. We will see it in stores mid 2006. I hope the first FON routers will be 802.11N but that remains to be seen…

3G is not going to replace WiFi, even though Verizon, god bless their heart, is advertising on the back of every major business magazine that WiFi is crap. I don't blame them (it was written by a marketing person). After the session I told Jeffery Belk that FON believes, when given the option users will prefer to make a cheap call over a WiFi network rather then traditional cell networks. Even if that means standing still for a few minutes (it’s rude to talk while walking anyway). He told me I was crazy! He said, "no one will ever want to make phone calls over a WiFi network" when given a choice. My response "I think you're wrong, and hopefully FON will prove it."

Jeffery may have been right about WiMax hype but he is dead wrong about WiFiFON's. Lets see what the nice people at eTel will have to say.

Posted by Ejovi on General
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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

FON firmware update

You can now download the updated version of the FON firmware (0.5.2) for the Linksys WRT54G/GS/GL. The firmware is now also available for the WRT54GSv4.

For those of you who are new to FON, all the software if free for download on the FON website:

FON Software Dowloading Area

Posted by William on Technology
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

FON In Hawaii?

I'm in Hawaii for the second year in a row at the PTC06 Conference. The first day I arrived I spent a lazy day on the beach but I've found that I can get a lot of work done with the sound of the ocean in the background and the warmth of the sun streaming into my window. I have a view of the ocean and working on my laptop while glancing over to the beach is a great feeling. But its short lived.

Thursday I'm going to San Francisco where Martin V. and I will launch FON at O'Reilly's Emerging Telecom Conference.

I think Hawaii, at least the Waikiki area would be a great area for FONeros. If you are a Bill their are plenty of tourist (Aliens) to profit from and if you are Linus you never have to worry about finding reliable internet access in crowded tourist areas. I had a brief conversation with the CIO of the University of Hawaii about deploying FON, lets see what happens. Las Vegas would be good too, anyone want to handle Vegas? ;-)

Posted by Ejovi on Business
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Friday, January 13, 2006

FON in Less Developed Countries

While the prices of goods manufactured in less developed countries vary from country to country depending on income, currency strength, natural resources, the prices of internet access and internet equipment are pretty standard around the world. Surprisingly, they are higher in less developed countries where income is much lower. While in America the GDP per capita is $36K per year and the annual cost of an internet connection around $360 or 1% of that in Argentina the annual cost of broadband is around $480 and the annual GDP per capita around $4000 or 12%. Taking this into consideration FON has developed a different model for Less Developed Countries that relies on clusters of people sharing a broadband connection through WiFi. While in Europe, Japan and United States FON´s motto is share broadband at home have broadband everywhere in Argentina for example our motto will be, team up with your neighbors to share bandwidth...through wifi. In order for broadband to have a similar impact on people´s budget the sharing will have to be on an approximate 10:1 ratio. Initially ISPs may be against our model but we will probably prevail when they see that we will work with them, deploy our model in low income neighborhoods and the result will be that more connections are sold. In addition, users will see more value as they will be able to roam from cluster to cluster and will be more likely to pay. In some way we will implement something akin to Grameen Phone , but for WiFi.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2006

WiFi guru's predictions for 2006

Blogger, journalist and WiFi guru Glenn Fleishman just posted his predictions for the new year. Here are a few eye-catching ones:

- Wi-Fi hotspots will cross 200,000 worldwide. They’re already at roughly 100,000 worldwide today. The trend isn’t lessening at either the informal level (adding a Wi-Fi gateway in a coffeeshop) or the top-end (installing a multi-million dollar airport system).

- All consumer electronic categories will have many Wi-Fi-equipped models. It may take until Christmas 2006, but every single category of consumer product will have not just a proof of concept, but many items with Wi-Fi built in. Digital cameras with Wi-Fi might finally reach the consumer level with reasonable features, such as Secure FTP (SFTP) support. The remaining wild card is whether devices will be able to stream wirelessly among any equipment or whether the MPAA will fight back those attempts and require encrypted streams among licensed devices.

- Municipal Wi-Fi will continue to gain momentum. Hundreds of new RFPs will appear next year and hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent. Battles among incumbents, competitive operators, cities, and non-profits will be waged. But networks will be built. And we’ll finally see whether muni-scale networks can deliver on promises, probably within the first quarter of 2006.

A promising year indeed for Foneros...

Posted by William on General
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Monday, January 2, 2006

Happy New Year!!!

The FON team wishes you a Happy New Year. 2006 promises to be an exciting year for Foneros and what better way to start things off than to check out what's in store for WiFi fans at the upcoming International Consumer Electronics Show set to open its doors from January 5th to the 8th.