FON interview

My email interview regarding FON just was published on the official FON blog (German site).

Being a FONero and feeling good about it!

A few month ago I read a post at heise.de ( a German IT news website ) about a company called FON, who where giving away WiFi Hotspot and WLAN router for free in exchange of a promise.

Interested in the offer (hey, it said FREE as in free beer), I visited the FON website, read the fine print (wasn't that much anyway), gave the promise and registered.

Only two short weeks after that I received a very small white router which looked like designed by Apple (and incidentally is only slightly larger than the original iPod) and brought it online with only a few clicks. And that was all, I had a fully functional and safe Hotspot for me and every other person looking for one.

But what is a FON, the router and the promise actually?

The easiest explanation is to quote the FON site: "FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. Our members share their wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever they find another Fonero’s Access Point."

And the "La Fonera" router is a small package which provides two wireless networks: an open FON social channel and another private channel with good security. Just plug in the La Fonera into your already existing broadband modem or router and get going (with a secure WPA connection already set up and a personal password consisting of the La Fonera router serial number).

And the promise I gave is to let my FON router running 24/7 to enable other FONeros the use of my hotspot.

The big advantage (beside having a good, warm feeling in the gut) is, that now that I am a FONero I can use any other FON hotspot worldwide for free!

Here is a link to my FON (a nice map provided by FON and Google maps): location & map

So what about you? Want to join the currently 185.000 FONeras and FONeros (app. 28.000 within Germany - member numbers from the FON website early December)? Go to the FON site and join the revolution (well, sort of, of course they want to make some money, after all Skype/eBay and Google are some of the FON investors - but the idea is good enough to be supported!). Hope to see you soon on the FON maps!

take care,
Kashif-