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« Xi'an Goes Wi-Fi | Main | EarthLink Post Loss, But Has Significant Gains »

February 6, 2007

Fon Turns One, Hands Out 10,000 Routers

Fon is giving away 10,000 La Fonera routers to US residents for its birthday: The Spanish-based firm is building a hybrid of grassroots and operator-backed Wi-Fi locations and hotspots worldwide. The router is generally pretty cheap--about US$30 and €30--but this removes any barrier.

As usual, I do complain about Martin Varsavsky's characterization of their network as "on our way to becoming the largest Wi-Fi network [in] America" with 18,000 "Foneras ordered" because a Fon node isn't equivalent to most public hotspots. Some Fon nodes are identical to hotspots and "worth" as much in an apples-to-apples "largest Wi-Fi network" comparison. Others aren't. But I don't think Fon should be as hung up about being large; they should be concerned about being dense, and dense in the right areas.

Fon nodes in Seattle, for instance, are largely in residential neighborhoods, apparently in people's homes. In dense areas, that means that neighbors, especially in apartment buildings, will be able to use those Fon locations. But Fon doesn't encourage regular use, purposely pricing its day charge at about US-two-bucks, varying depending on locality. Fon wants its users to buy broadband lines from operators, and hopes that casual use and other forms of use (not fully explained yet, but VoIP and UMA are certainly components) will increase broadband lines rather than replace them. There has to be a backhaul, although Fon is backhaul agnostic.

For Fon locations that are in more heavily trafficked or traditional hotspot locations, Fon does offer the advantage of community (existing users seeking out the location) and simple revenue collection (for hotspots run in the Bill mode). Fon is certainly among the simplest and cheapest way to set up a hotspot with a small bar of entry, although competitors like LessNetworks and now Whisher have alternatives, neither of which offers the potential for revenue collection (yet).

The terms of the giveaway limits routers one per Fon user or shipping address (US residents and addresses only) until 10,000 are depleted or March 31, 2007. You can register and immediately obtain a router. The routers must be activated as Fon locations, but there's no stated penalty or terms if you don't. The terms ask that you pass the router on if you're not going to use it.