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May 15, 2006

Buenos Aires with 100,000 Foneros

By Glenn Fleishman

Fon receives some southern hemisphere ink at the opening of the Digital Cities Forum in Buenos Aires, Argentina (en español): While there’s no deal in place nor an exact count, there’s some interest in whether a proposal could provide free broadband wireless across this large South American city. Fon founder Martin Varsavsky is quoted indirectly via Alejandro Piscitelli, the head of Argentinian education portal Educ.ar as suggesting 50,000 to 100,000 Fon hotspots or Foneros might do the trick. Of course, as the article notes, it’s not an easy project at that scale. Piscitelli is also involved with the MIT project for affordable developing world laptops for children.

A big issue with this plan is that Fon relies on ISPs for backhaul rather than creating its own network in the current incarnation. One hundred thousand Foneros would require 100,000 broadband lines, and the question is who precisely would pay for the backhaul and would that compensate ISPs who lose customers as a result? But there’s a bit of excitement about the plan having been floated, the reporter notes.

Posted by Glennf at May 15, 2006 8:12 PM

Categories: International, Municipal

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