The La Fonera router made its debut in Singapore during the recent Singapore IT Show 2007. The reception was absolutely ecstatic. The booths were very well visited and a large number of routers were sold during the 4 day event. The La Fonera router is now available at retail shops in Singapore at SG$39.
Singapore is an interesting place to watch because Singaporeans are used to free WiFi access. As one of Asia’s “tech societies”, the government really pushes for WiFi access everywhere through the Wireless@SG initiative. Even so, we believe FON has its own place in Singapore and will play an important role in serving the mobile information needs of this island nation.
FON is more than “free WiFi”. FON is a global movement and Foneros can roam around the world at hundreds of thousands of FONspots. Incidentally, Wireless@SG is only free for the first 2 years. The participating ISPs may start to charge for the service from the 3rd year onwards.
It will be interesting to see how the FON movement in Singapore interacts with and complement the Wireless@SG or any future government WiMax services.