Thursday, February 23, 2006

OpenFON

I'm sitting here with the CTO of FON Juantomas and we are trying to figure out how to develop a platform for FON users to customize their router look and feel. One of the questions we have is this: what do you want on your router?

Blog?
Flickr?
News?
WiFi Thank you note?
Classifieds?
Customize your firmware?

What would you like to be able to add and have on your customized access point?

Posted by Ejovi on Technology
# Permalink | Comments (53) | TrackBacks (0)

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

FON Install Manual

The initial routers didn't go out with a setup manual because we were scrambling to ship. But the routers going out from this point on will include this FON Setup Manual. Check it out and let me know what you think.

We now have more than 17,500 Foneros!

Posted by Ejovi on General
# Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Monday, February 20, 2006

Confirmed your email address?

If you received a confirmation to purchase your router but you can't log in to the shop it is most likely because you haven't confirmed your email during initial registration. So please confirm your email address from the initial registration first, then you should be able to login to the shop.

Posted by Ejovi on Foneros
# Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

FON ships with love

Take a look at some of the USA FON staff. The router you receive from the USA is flashed, boxed and packed by the people in that picture. We aren't as big as Amazon so we can't move very fast, we are doubling staff over the next week. I'm the guy in the middle. My business card is included in every router shipped. So if you have any questions please email me!
FONBox3.jpg
I understand your frustration with the slow process but we are averaging 30 routers a day now! So things are getting better.

Posted by Ejovi on General
# Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday, February 17, 2006

Routers shipping

The first routers in the USA were shipped two days ago. We will continue shipping all this week. You should be receiving emails over the next few days asking you to confirm your purchase. The same applies for routers shipping out of Spain to orders placed within the EU. Have FON!

Posted by Ejovi on Events
# Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)

Saturday, February 11, 2006

FON Inside

Fon_inside_big_JPG.JPG
Thanks so much to Jan from Netherlands.

Posted by Mayte on Foneros
# Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Friday, February 10, 2006

ISPs that allow you to share

If you live in the USA you might be interested in these list of ISPs that allow sharing:
PersonalTelco list of ISPs that allow sharing
EFF list of ISPs that allow sharing

In the meantime the FON team is working hard to sign agreements with ISPs. If you are a ISP that is willing to support FON see FON for ISPs.

Posted by Ejovi on Business
# Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Wednesday, February 8, 2006

Reminder for 'betatesters'

Hi all,

This is a reminder, for those who bravely downloaded the 'e-beta' version from the URLs we posted in this blog: that was a non-production version, and was configured to work through a testing server. It might not be active 100% of the time and it might not work 100% of the time it is actually active. Accounts might eventually disappear (don't worry, you can always re-register or just go for the officially released firmwares) or be disabled.

Please, understand that this is a very kamikaze-testing area, for those who like trying things even before they are out ;)

Thanks for your help!

Posted by Iurgi on General
# Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Sunday, February 5, 2006

A DREAM COME TRUE

As you know, FON is a global community of people who share WiFi connections. We call these people "Foneros", as a tribute to our heritage as a Spanish company. In order to become a Fonero, you go to FON, to download software that you install in your router, you place your antenna by a window and you share bandwidth with other Foneros from anywhere in the world. You can also buy the FON Ready router from our web site, plug and play. FON creates a free WiFi roaming environment for those who contribute WiFi signals, namely those who have already signed up with a local ISP and downloaded our software into their WiFi routers.

The success of FON, like the success of all online communities -- such as eBay, Skype, ICQ, IM -- depends on many people joining. At the very beginning, when there are no obvious advantages to joining FON, it is not so easy to get Foneros, even though the service is free. But as Foneros continue to join, and there are more and more Fonero hotspots, the dream of a unified global broadband wireless signal becomes a reality. The FON movement, as we call it, can achieve what 3G or EVDO has not -- a truly broadband wireless Internet everywhere. 3G/EVDO are great for coverage, but their throughput is pitiful compared to WiFi and they are way too expensive.

FON was launched just 90 days ago and we already have over 3,000 registered Foneros. While that number may seem small, 3,000 registered Foneros puts us at 10% of our 2006 objective in only 3 months: to become the largest hotspot network in the world by the end of the year. Currently, the largest global hotspot networks have around 30,000 hotspots. But after having built the second largest Spanish Internet company, Ya.com and the second largest publicly traded telecom company in Spain, Jazztel both with significant backers, I realized that at FON was going to need very special alliances to succeed on its objective of having 1 million hotspots around the world in 4 years. I knew that our method of downloading firmware was a much faster way of building a unified global WiFi signal than the traditional method used by local hotspots companies. Their way -- buying WiFi boxes and deploying them hotspot by hotspot -- is costly and inefficient. Ours is simple: download and install. Ours is a people's network. But for FON to succeed we need tremendous magnifying power for our message.

So I sought the ultimate alliances in the industry, and aimed high, very high. And today I have a great announcement to make: FON can now count Google , Skype, Sequoia Capital, and Index Ventures as investors and backers. They’ve joined us to help advance the FON movement, leading a group that has put 18 million Euros into FON and also committed to give us a strategic boost that should help us make this great idea into a great platform for everyone who wants a faster, cheaper and more secure wireless Internet. We’ll invest this money in R&D so we can make it quicker and easier to become a FONERO and so that we can expand the number of things you can do with your FON service. Our goal, after all, isn’t just to share bandwidth. It’s to use the power of people to people networks to create a global wireless network. What makes each of these firms great backers for us is that deep in their DNA is the idea of brand-new business models, tons of innovation and a commitment to making the digital world easier and cheaper. We feel the same way. So while we’re excited about (and responsible for!) their investment, we’re even more pleased to have their support. Also I am pleased to announced today that we have obtained the support of two significant ISPs for FON. In America Speakeasy has said that they welcome FON and in Europe, Glocalnet and FON have signed an agreement so Glocalnet sells its services FON ready and the Swedish foneros will soon be able move around Stockholm and other cities with their WiFi enabled gadgets. FON shares revenues with ISPs making it attractive for them to join the FON movement.

In coming days I’ll use this blog to tell you how we ended up here, including all the adventures we’ve had in the past few months moving from Madrid to Stockholm to London to Silicon Valley. I’ve promised to blog FON since the beginning. I’ve had to be quiet during the past weeks as we finalized our arrangements, but now I can use this space to tell about how backers like Niklas and Janus from Skype, our friends at Google or Danny Rimer of Index and Mike Moritz of Sequoia were so helpful in shaping and supporting our idea. I had never been to Silicon Valley until FON came about. Showing up from Spain with a business plan in my pocket and getting the support of two of the largest internet companies in the world in less than one month made me realize how it is that American dominates the internet. It´s all about willing to take risks. In this case what was unique was how rivals got together to collaborate at FON. This is understandable as unifying all the disparate WiFi signal out there and offering the internet everywhere has benefits for all Internet sites and ISPs involved (in the case of ISPs because FON is only free only after you sign up with a broadband ISP so FON is an added advantage at no cost to the ISP).

Now we turn to the task of building the movement. As you’ll see if you go to download our software, one of our first priorities is going to be expanding the platforms we work with. Today, if you’ve got a Linksys router (version WRT54G 4 and below, and WRT54GL/GS) you’re just a few clicks away from becoming a functioning Fonero. This router is costing us around 50 dollars at Linksys but for a limited time we are selling it for 25 dollars FON ready as we want to have as many Foneros as possible. A warning here. Becoming a Fonero if you already have a Linksys router is not as simple as say, downloading Skype. If you are not sure of your technical skills it is better that you simply buy a FON ready router. A second warning relates to your ISP. While we do know that some ISPs like Speakeasy in America allow FON do check with your ISP before installing FON as they may not yet allow it. At FON however we believe that as we sign more revenue share agreements with ISPs they will end up allowing FON since FON is not a free WiFi platform but a free roaming platform among paying customers. In the meantime we’re already working on software for other routers and we’ll roll them out as quickly as we can. (You can click here to sign up for an email note from us when we’ve got software for your router model.) In the future people will become foneros by working off more router models. At FON we have one simple idea: if you have broadband at home, you should have it wherever else you go -- free. Like Skype, FON is one of those low cost high advantage proposition as the chance of other foneros coming by your place is low (and in any case our software limits their bandwidth consumption to 50% at most) but the benefit to you and your WiFi enabled gadgets of having free WiFi roaming will be big when many foneros sign up.

Now how do we plan to make money at FON? At FON we plan to make money with characters we call the Aliens. To us the world is divided into Linus, Bills and Aliens. A Linus shares his/her bandwidth for free with other Foneros, Bills share their bandwidth for a small fee, and Aliens don't share their bandwidth at all.

If you capture FON´s signal and you are not a fonero in 120 days you will have to pay to use the FON signal. Our rates for Aliens will be like those of public transportation, a price of a subway or bus ticket. So FON will provide either free WiFi or very low cost WiFi. Still if you are using FON everyday it´s better that you become Fonero by signing up for broadband with your local ISP cause those low cost rates add up to more than their monthly charges if you log in everyday. What do we do with the money from Aliens? We share it with the ISPs so they support FON. Also in case you are interested in FON only to make some money and not to get free WiFi roaming we also share it with you. At FON you can choose. If you become a fonero to obtain free WiFi everywhere you are a Linus fonero, if you become a fonero to make money out of your WiFi connection you are a Bill fonero. We at FON think the world is built by Bills and Linuses (Bill comes from Bill Gates and Linus from Linus Torvalds) and enjoyed by both builders (Foneros) and Aliens who just like to enjoy things without caring much about building them.

Here's what Skype thinks about this dream...

Posted by Martin on General
# Permalink | Comments (30) | TrackBacks (0)

Working with the ISP

The largest concern we have received from our very smart board of advisers is how receptive ISP's will be to FON. Although it's not illegal to share you connection many ISP's have restrictive End User License Agreements (EULA) that prevents you from sharing with anyone outside your household. There are some exceptions to the rule, for example Speakeasy has a very open policy. There are many ISP's that are similar to Speakeasy but the difficulty is with the major broadband cable companies that most people use.

To some extent the restrictive EULA's make sense from a business standpoint. The ISP's don't want one person in a building to sign up for broadband and then have his entire neighborhood leech off of it instead of paying. But that isn't an issue with FON. A big part of what I have been doing in the USA is trying to educate ISP's that FON is actually GOOD for their business. And this is why:

We give free roaming to their clients at no expense to the ISP, encouraging more people to sign up with them

We share revenues from aliens with the ISP

FON is a nation of people who share their broadband in exchange for having access to other broadband access points

We are not creating a network of free loaders. This is something that is very important to Martin because he founded Spain's second largest Telecom and ISP companies. So he believes it’s critical to our success to work with ISP's and I think his background has been a great help. We have already signed a deal with one major ISP in Europe and are currently talking to several others. It’s a win/win situation for our foneros and for the ISP's. Soon we hope to have a list of ISP's that explicitly allow FON, until then you should contact your ISP to encourage them to embrace FON.

Posted by Teo on Technology
# Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

New firmwares in sight

Hi FONeros,

This is Iurgi from the development department of FON. We are proud to announce the upcoming release of two new firmware versions at the same time.

The first one will be an update of our previous firmware. It will be mainly a bugfix but will also have some additional features, such as PPPoE support, fallback system if no Internet connection is detected (showing wan configuration interface), default password, inter-network isolation (WLAN users cannot access LAN) etc. But the main feature is a much more simple and efficient way of registering the access point. I can foretell you that the ones that have already registered your access points will be requested to do it again after reflashing; but only for this time. Future eventual reflashes won't require you to register the router again.

The second firmware we are going to release will be much more powerful. Whilst the other one will stuck to simplicity, for those who just want it to be plug and play, this second one will be based on the famous dd-wrt firmware by Brainsalyer. Being based on such a powerful firmware, will provide you with the capability of fine tuning many features. This firmware is recommended for those who want to have full control of their boxes and want to redirect specific ports to their own servers, need special configuration protocols for their Internet connection etc.

So we will have 2 different firmwares supported simltaneously: FONbasic, for those who want it simple yet usable and reliable and FONadvanced for the more exigent ones.

It's up to you which one to use.

Release date? We can't say it yet, but I can promise you it will be soon, during this month.

Posted by Teo on Technology
# Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Wireless Security

Most people are concerned with the security of their wireless network and it makes sense for them to be. A lot of people don't know how to actually secure their wireless access point or add encryption to it. It is becoming easier now, and many manufacturers give very detailed steps on how to encrypt your wireless network. But FON does something a little different.

We add security to your wireless network without encryption in two ways. The first is that when you install FON or buy a FON router it creates two segmented networks. One network is for people that connect over the wireless antennas (the visitor network) and the other network is for your personal computers that are connected locally (your home network). We separate the visitor and home networks using a firewall. So someone that connects to your wireless visitor network would not be able to connect to your personal computer if it’s on your home network.

The second thing we do is we give you the ability to restrict access to your hotspot only to FON users and specific people you trust, of course you can leave it open to anyone, but our default policy is to limit it to Foneros, Aliens and your family. When someone connects to your network over the wireless antenna, we restrict their access and only allow them to visit the FON authentication page. If they are Foneros then we allow them to browse the Internet, but not connect to your personal home network.

We take security very seriously here at FON, especially me since I built my career in the security industry. And these are just some of the steps we are taking. But the underlying belief we have at FON is that Foneros should be able to share safely, securely and worry free.

Posted by Teo on Technology
# Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)