Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Fonosfera: The FON Development Community
We're working hard on the launch of our next product, the Fonera 2.0. The Fonera 2.0 is a Fonera that will not only make it easy to provide WiFi for yourself and for your neighbors, it will also provide Foneros with great features like the ability to connect a hard drive to it and autonomously upload or download content from the Internet while you’re doing something else on your laptop or when your PC is off. In short the Fonera 2.0 will manage your daily relationship with the Web 2.0 doing such thing as sending your pictures to Flickr, your videos to Youtube, downloading your torrents, etc. Many of the things that the new Fonera will do a PC can do but why tie up a thousand dollar investment doing menial tasks when you can have a $49 Fonera do them.
The Fonera 2.0 will be an open platform for developers to build their applications on top of, much like a hacked iPhone is now. An open platform is nothing without a community of developers, so we’re announcing today the launch of The Fonosfera, our development community program that will span not only the Fonera 2.0 but all Fon products. We know there are already many communities doing great things with our Foneras, adding new features and fixing bugs. The idea behind the Fonosfera is to bring all the development work the communities have been doing and will do in the future to any Fon user.
The Fonosfera will be a chance for all these communities to keep working independently, while contributing to the development of Fon products including the Fonera 2.0 and the applications that will run on it. The Fonosfera will provide a space for gathering and sharing between developers and to make their projects available to end users all around the world. It will include a framework with development and community tools such as svn, trac, forums, mailing list, wiki etc. We already picked a few communities that have proved they can do great things with the Fonera and sent them a test version of our Fonera 2.0.
The Fonera 2.0 will provide a USB connection and users will be able to plug any sort of USB device to it (as long as there’s software support in the firmware, and we invite developers to add support for any device they might think of). The Fonera 2.0 will provide out of the box the ability to connect a hard drive or pendrive to it, so you can access it on your local network and use it to store the contents your Fonera 2.0 will download from the Internet for you. Another interesting feature we are working on is the ability to connect an HSDPA modem to the USB port of the Fonera 2.0, to share an HSDPA connection on the move or where DSL is not available.
We are working hard to make the Fonera 2.0 as open as possible, and we are willing to take all the help the development community can bring to Fon and Foneros. Our users will still have to wait a few months to get their Foneras 2.0, but we’re sure it will be worth the wait.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Outrageous Foneros!
Fellow Fonero Gabriel F. Storchi has decided to drive from Buenos Aires to Alaska. If the car still drives he'll ship it to Sweden and drive to India from there. He's driving in a restored Chevy Nova (I suspect the don't call it a Nova in Argentina) and posting his updates (in Spanish) and photos. Take a look and watch for him in your town!
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Geneva, A New Home for Foneros
The City of Geneva and FON have officially announced a joint project to provide WiFi access to the city’s residents and visitors. Starting next week, 500 La Fonera WiFi Routers will be distributed to residents who have a broadband connection at home and have signed up for the project at: http://geneve-fon.org.
Residents who want to become Foneros and share some of their broadband with the rest of the FON Community will gain free and unlimited access to more than 250,000 FON Spots around the world. Once the 500 La Foneras have been installed, Geneva’s residents and all of your Foneros visiting the city will enjoy WiFi coverage.
This project is part of FON’s strategy to provide WiFi coverage in major cities worldwide, such as Tokyo, San Francisco and Munich. This initiative together with ChuecaWiFi in Madrid and FON’s partnerships with BT in the UK and Neuf Cegetel in France, give Foneros even more FON Spots around the world to connect to and give non Foneros more reasons to join the FON Community.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Thursday, October 11, 2007
The FON Team; Part 1
Hello Foneros, I thought it would fun to bring you some details on the people who make FON run. I'll chase down more of my co-workers in the coming weeks to bring you some insight into what makes FON tick.
This week I'm sitting down with Iurgi Arginzoniz, our Firmware Manager.
Q: When did you join FON?
A: Before it even began. I was working on a project by the Swiss market incumbent, Swisscom. It was called air bites and we did something similar to what fon is. But much more rudimentary. FON and Swisscom were about to go for a joint venture and we had already been working on it for 3 months, when everything went wrong and the deal was turned down. I left my company and joined the unborn FON at the request of Martin Varsavsky. This was November 7, 2005!
Q: What is your greatist accomplishment at FON?
A: Hard to tell. Probably the launch of La Fonera was the biggest thing till now. I went to Taipei, Taiwan, and worked day and night with Felix (from OpenWrt.org) and Jordi (our hardware expert) for 17days in a row. It was insane. When we came back, La Fonera was ready to be born. Of course, we improved lots of stuff afterwards.
Q: What lessons have you learned?
A: Well, probably, the most important one is that a good job is almost always rewarded. I worked hard and I'm very well respected at FON. FON is working hard and we're getting our results and keep growing at
unbelievable speed.
Q:. What are you working on now?
A: Part of my work cannot be disclosed, but we have 4 different projects in the hands of my department. They're all so exciting and I hope we can finish them on schedule. I think many people will be happy when we show the results.
Q: What would you like to see in the future?
A: Even if it sounds like an obvious reply: a free WiFi network that will permit us to be connected anywhere in metropolitan areas. I hope it's FON doing that, but the real wish is that it happens, whoever is behind
it. Internet is the cheapest luxury nowadays and WiFi can make it available for even more people.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Friday, June 22, 2007
The Next One!
Still not me in the video.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Monday, June 4, 2007
Fonero Beta Testers Program
Dear Fonero,
As you have showed your interest in participating in the development of the FON Community, we would like you to help us carry out some tests for some new products.
If you are interested in being part of this FON Beta Test team just send us an e-mail before the 10 June 2007 to beta@fon.com.
In order to do so you must comply with the following requirements:
- Be over 18 years old.
- Be an English speaker as all communications related to this program will be sent to you in this language.
- Have a registered FON user name that has been active for over 6 months.
- Have a La Fonera installed and registered for over 4 months.
- Live in one of the following countries in which we are currently selling our products:
Germany
Austria
Bulgaria
Belgium
Cyprus
Denmark
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxemburg
Malta
Norway
Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
United Kingdom
Czech Republic
Romania
Sweden
Switzerland
Canada
U.S.A.
Hong Kong
Korea
Taiwan
Japan
If you are chosen, among all the e-mails received, as a member of our Beta Tester´s Team, you will have access to our new products and you will be able to test them before anybody else and help us improving them with your ideas and feedback.
We hope you enjoy our products as much as we enjoy developing them!
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Monday, April 16, 2007
Fonero Gets Fonero Update
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company
Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company in Glen Arbor, Michigan is proud to offer FON wifi to their customers! Leelanau Coffee has been roasting and serving coffee for fourteen years. They supply the better restaurants, grocery stores, and cafés throughout the northern part of Michigan. They are open 360 days a year, serving up espresso, brewed coffee, and tea. With indoor and outdoor seating, it is a gathering place for locals and tourists alike who love Leelanau County, Glen Lake, Lake Michigan, and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Stop in and see them next time your in the neighborhood! If you can't get there you can also order their coffee online. With over 90 varieties including USDA Certified Organic there is something for everyone!
If you would like your cafe or restaurant featured here please contact me via the comments.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Friday, March 9, 2007
Want to be featured on this blog?
If your cafe or business has a FON access point and you would like to be featured on this blog post a comment and I'll contact you.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Thursday, May 18, 2006
FON in Germany
Thanks to the Fonero who put together this collection of Café’s with FON in Germany. Below is a photo of Derendorf in the city of Duesseldorf. I visited Germany during Carnival and Duesseldorf was my favorite. If you have an opportunity to visit Germany, take it. It's a beautiful country. Take a minute to look at these photos. If you’re in Germany let the Café’s know you appreciate them having FON!
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Monday, May 8, 2006
Foneros Everywhere
FON continues to grow each day and is quickly covering the globe. Thank you to all the Foneros who are making this a success! Here are the top ten countries in the FON movement.
Continue reading "Foneros Everywhere"
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Monday, May 1, 2006
Hello World!
Hello world! Beginning today I’ll be posting here as a Guest Blogger. Many of you already know me from my postings on the FON board and my blog. This is a fantastic opportunity for me to share my enthusiasm for FON and provide you with the latest updates! I’m open to ideas so let me know what you would like to see here and I’ll do my best to deliver.
While I have your attention I’d like to encourage you to look at the FON maps! The first updates have been competed. There is more work to be done as many addresses require updating. FON employees will be working on this through May.
Posted by Steve Ross on Foneros
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Tuesday, April 4, 2006
Fontastic blogs
A big hat tip to those foneros (or should i say Fon-Heros) who've created some really wicked independent blogs such as FONternet, FONhome and the very recent one i linked to in my previous entry, FONtastic, all dedicated to WiFi sharing and to the FON community Keep it up guys, we love reading you!
Posted by William on Foneros
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Thursday, March 23, 2006
Customer Service
Customer service is tough to get right. But I think we have done OK. We had issues with FON routers being back ordered. To be honest we didn't think things would grow as fast as they did. Almost all of the complaints we've seen have been related to people getting their routers late. Over the last two weeks we have dropped everything to make sure foneros received AND were happy with their routers.
What have we learned from the experience?
Shipping to Alaska is expensive! We mistakenly charged $8 to ship routers to Alaska. Actual cost was $29. We of course ate the cost and the customers in Alaska are now very big FON fans (we fixed that shipping problem).
USPS isn't all that great. We first started shipping with the United States Post Office. They aren't too good at actually getting packages to their destination. How did we solve this problem? We sent over night packages with UPS to foneros who fell victim to the USPS hickup.
Printing labels on old laser jets is a bad idea. We started printing our UPS labels on an old laser jet. During shipping some of the labels smudged and became unreadable! We worked with UPS to track down those packages and for packages that were taking a long time, we simply reshipped a replacement. We now used a neat little thermal printer.
It’s been a learning process, geeks doing logistics is a bad idea! We will be outsourcing logistics for the next batch of routers. But for many of those who received their routers late, they received more "FON stuff." See the pics below.
Hope we are doing ok.
Posted by Ejovi on Foneros
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Thursday, March 9, 2006
Born Fonero
Foneros aren't made. They are born!
From sylvainbriant.com
Where are your fonero pics?
Posted by Ejovi on Foneros
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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
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Saturday, February 11, 2006
FON Inside
Thanks so much to Jan from Netherlands.
Posted by Mayte on Foneros
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Monday, December 12, 2005
Youth in Business: Ejovi Nuwere
Ejovi Nuwere, our lead fonero in the States is only 26. Ejovi however has put together an amazing American Board for FON. I just spent two days working with Ejovi in the Bay Area meeting with Dan Gillmor, a few key VC firms, hardware manufacturers and web site companies and I could very well see how so many different people can trust Ejovi.
Posted by Martin on Foneros
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Monday, December 5, 2005
How many foneros do we need to have global wifi coverage?
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.
via MV
Posted by William on Foneros
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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Ejovi Nuwere: FON leader for North America
I'd like to introduce to you Ejovi Nuwere, our FON leader for North America. Ejovi is one of those IT prodigies. He was a hacker when he was young, but now, at 25, he is the head of his own internet security company and Business Week one of the top 20 most talented entrepreneurs in the US.
I met Ejovi at the March 11 conference and i was really impressed ith his ideas on how to make the internet secure and at the same time, more open. When i started FON, i invited Ejovi to be our North America leader and he accepted. And not only did he accept, but he also shared with me the great news that Andrew Raseiej, the political WiFi activist from New York, had joined FON.
Posted by Martin on Foneros
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Saturday, November 26, 2005
What about the Bills?
Bills, we owe you, we know. Like we said many times, 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 we can say to the Bills (who are waiting to set up their router and place their antena where they can catch lots of Aliens who 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 securely. 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 that 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 a 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 Bill. 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.
Posted by William on Foneros
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Sunday, November 20, 2005
For Share
Gorka Aguado of Polinomio Estudios and Teranga Percusion offered us a glimpse of their talent with this video clip they kindly prepared for the FON launch: Se Comparte (For Share), dedicated to Linuses and to the WiFi nation.
Download it here:
- Se Comparte (on YourTube.com)
- Se Comparte (256, .wmv)
- Se Comparte (512, .wmv)
Posted by William on Foneros
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Saturday, November 5, 2005
Some FON Maps, Málaga (Spain)
Some demo points indicating FONers in Málaga (Spain).
Posted by Alvy on Foneros
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