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Sorry but that's not a "fact of life" that's a fact shove down your throat by power hungry men backed by the full and heavily armed power of the IRS. I'm all for free widespread internet access in cities, but only if it's provided on a voluntary basis ( http://www.fon.com/en/ is a great example ).

Govt provided internet would (among many other bad things) reduce choices. Think of schooling for example, when everyone has to pay for public school regardless of usage, the private schools can only cater to very specific niches (mostly religious and wealthy).

Lets make it clear that what I called the Google's Internet is actually the Internet. and will be better the anything any of the monopolies have supplied.

• What makes you think "Google's Internet" is going to be any less ghetto-ized than the Big Evil (TM) Telcos'?

Many good thing came out of the Ghetto's, but nothing good is going to come out of the Telcos but expensive long distance bills and broadcast TV cashed at local sights. All the rest will be blocked, or the bandwidth will be restricted so as not to require the Internet backbone growth that will be needed.

• You can buy a wireless router right now and put in on your roof and give all your neighbors free Wifi. Realistically, there is little chance of your ISP finding out, if it happens that it's a violation of your TOS.

I have a http://www.fon.com/ router on the roof... what joke the signal does not get off my yard let alone to the next house.... back in May 95. And yes the FON its is the same transmiter used by Cisco's 803.11b/g hardware. It's power is limited by the FCC. So that it can not compete with the Telco's. See when the FCC failed the people back in May 1995. Read about the NII Band (National Information Infrastructure)
http://www.tapr.org/ss_psr60ss.html

Now that you have read that you will realize how routers on the roof will work. And why the telco's promote FUD so the public will not see the end of the telco as we now know it.

• But Google is a for profit company, so the minute you start getting checks, free access, or some other kind of compensation the "authorities" from the IRS on down to your local dogcatcher will be all over you like a cheap suit. More than likely, at least in the US, it's not worth the trouble.

I all ready have free internet access, I just have to drive to the local bread store to get it! The telco's can't seem to lay down the wires to make things work. But there are many, hundreds, of houses with in a 10k to 15k radius. So a roof top network would solve the problem. As referenced above.

What makes you think the Internet is a pipe out of which money should flow in to your pocket. Its not. More over I am not trying to be an ISP. I am, like most people, willing to share the burden to promote open ISP competition.

The Internet is a communications tool. And its true the backbone requires some work. But the work will be best done by ISP's that are free to bypass the monopoly of the telco's that will be supplied by the general public

So we can, and will, simply bypass all this silly fiber optics. Since we will not need fiber for the for communications. And out TV needs can be supplied by broadcast media and time shifting DVR's.

Bottom line the telco is dead, long live the open market.

FON sell cheap routers called La Fonera with dual SSID. One is secure and for your own use, one is open and for the benefit of other people who share their bandwidth with a Fonera router. Guests who don't share their bandwidth can also connect for $3 per day. There are a few other permutations including a revenue sharing model, go read about it. Most ISPs in the UK don't let you share your bandwidth, however Fondoo.net do.

Well, check out FON then.

like FON ?

It's a good idea, just the tech hurdles and economic hurdles are awesome, let alone the political ones, as in, the government and big biz will not like this idea *at all*. But..it is something to contemplate as the internet-as-we-know-it-today gets turned into a series of pay per view walled gardens. . The OLPC machine has built in automagical mesh networking, I'd say look there for tech clues to begin your peoples' net. FON is somewhat what you are looking for that is out there now.

The article isn't too clear on this, but if you go to Fon's site at http://www.fon.com/, you'll see that Fon defines three user types:

Aliens - Non-FON users who pay for access at FON access points belonging to either of the following groups.
Linuses - FON users who do not receive any monetary compensation (other than a majorly discounted router), but get free access to any FON access point owned by a Linus or Bill
Bills - FON users who get 50% of the proceeds from aliens using their access point. They don't get free access to other FON APs owned by Bills or Linuses.

So if you live in the middle of nowhere, it makes lots of sense to become a Linus. Your AP will almost never be used by others (and if it is, you can restrict their bandwidth to a reasonably large degree), but you get free access to any other FON APs when you're on the road.

Haven't heard anything in the UK or Spain either.

And an open WAP is FON's business plan and they don't mention anything about keeping logs.

which is available from http://www.fon.com/ and is basically a little WiFi router which provides two SSIDs one is for your private use and is encrypted, one is for sharing and is not encrypted but you do have to authenticate with your FON ID to use it. If you have a FON hotspot which you share for free you can use anyone elses FON hotspot for free, or if you want to charge people who don't do the same you can collect a portion of the revenue they pay to FON (they pay 3 euros or dollars and you get about 1 euro or dollar per day after tax) If you are in the UK and think that sharing your bandwidth is in breach of your ISP terms and conditions then you should check out http://www.fondoo.net/ which explicitly permits FON hotspots in the T&Cs.

http://www.fon.com/en/

love my fonera.

now. http://www.fon.com/

http://www.fon.com/en/

If you analyse what you actually do when you "join the FON community" it's quite an audacious intelligence grab. You are given "for free" a wireless access point that offers a public as well as a "private" segment.
 
Only, it isn't really for free and it's not really all that private either.
 
It's not for free because you are serving your own (paid) bandwidth up to people who pass by, in exchange for the ability to do so elsewhere (in other words, you run the potential to offer bandwidth for many in order to get some bandwidth elsewhere). I'm OK with the communal idea of that. However, you don't get a penny from the profit the alleged "community" collectively makes for the company running it by enabling their global calling plan.
 
It's not exactly private either, for two reasons. First, the access point has an exact geographic location. Fair enough, rather hard to make this idea work otherwise and you can ask them to make the location a but less precise. But the map also shows activity, which implies a highly active feedback loop between the device and FON. Secondly, you have little opportunity to adjust the device. Although Linux inside, it's locked down and can be updated at any time by FON without your permission or knowledge of what the device actually does. Given the article above and the current staggering damage to privacy, it is really so inconceivable to see the US part of FON get a visit of a nice man in a dark suit with a briefcase asking them to give them access to a worldwide WiFi version of Echelon?
 
Maybe it's simply better to pay for an Internet cafe (using TOR).
 
In cash..

If you analyse what you actually do when you "join the FON community" it's quite an audacious intelligence grab. You are given "for free" a wireless access point that offers a public as well as a "private" segment.
 
Only, it isn't really for free and it's not really all that private either.
 
It's not for free because you are serving your own (paid) bandwidth up to people who pass by, in exchange for the ability to do so elsewhere (in other words, you run the potential to offer bandwidth for many in order to get some bandwidth elsewhere). I'm OK with the communal idea of that. However, you don't get a penny from the profit the alleged "community" collectively makes for the company running it by enabling their global calling plan.
 
It's not exactly private either, for two reasons. First, the access point has an exact geographic location. Fair enough, rather hard to make this idea work otherwise and you can ask them to make the location a but less precise. But the map also shows activity, which implies a highly active feedback loop between the device and FON. Secondly, you have little opportunity to adjust the device. Although Linux inside, it's locked down and can be updated at any time by FON without your permission or knowledge of what the device actually does. Given the article above and the current staggering damage to privacy, it is really so inconceivable to see the US part of FON get a visit of a nice man in a dark suit with a briefcase asking them to give them access to a worldwide WiFi version of Echelon?
 
Maybe it's simply better to pay for an Internet cafe (using TOR).
 
In cash..

If you analyse what you actually do when you "join the FON community" it's quite an audacious intelligence grab. You are given "for free" a wireless access point that offers a public as well as a "private" segment.
 
Only, it isn't really for free and it's not really all that private either.
 
It's not for free because you are serving your own (paid) bandwidth up to people who pass by, in exchange for the ability to do so elsewhere (in other words, you run the potential to offer bandwidth for many in order to get some bandwidth elsewhere). I'm OK with the communal idea of that. However, you don't get a penny from the profit the alleged "community" collectively makes for the company running it by enabling their global calling plan.
 
It's not exactly private either, for two reasons. First, the access point has an exact geographic location. Fair enough, rather hard to make this idea work otherwise and you can ask them to make the location a but less precise. But the map also shows activity, which implies a highly active feedback loop between the device and FON. Secondly, you have little opportunity to adjust the device. Although Linux inside, it's locked down and can be updated at any time by FON without your permission or knowledge of what the device actually does. Given the article above and the current staggering damage to privacy, it is really so inconceivable to see the US part of FON get a visit of a nice man in a dark suit with a briefcase asking them to give them access to a worldwide WiFi version of Echelon?
 
Maybe it's simply better to pay for an Internet cafe (using TOR).
 
In cash..

Go here

http://www.fon.com/en/

get a damn wifi router, stick it on your cable/dsl (they give them away sometimes, too, but a few $ is worth it), now, you can get wifi from everyone else who is sharing their 'net.

I can walk a few blocks in most cities and get online. Help us (and yourself) out, m'kay?

But first the FCC works for Us the Public. It needs to provide resources to the Public, not just the Telco's

I don't care about some dumb paper work. I want the Public to have a share of the radio spectrum. My Wifi FON [fon.com] router should have a 10 to 15 km range. not 100 to 500 foot range. It should be illegal/unconstitutional that we don't have reasonable Free Speech in digital spectrum.

But no We have to pay the Teloc's, the King ( of England ). This is the sort of thing that created this country. But some how the government has lost sight of this,

Its time to throw your cell phones (Tea) into the harbor.

I don't care about some dumb paper work.
I want the Public to have a share of the radio spectrum.
My Wifi FON router should have a 10 to 15 km range.
not 100 to 500 foot range. It should be illegal/unconstitutional
that we don't have reasonable Free Speech in digital spectrum.

But no We have to pay the Teloc's, the King ( of England ).
This is the sort of thing that created this country.
But some how the government has lost sight of this,

Its time to throw your cell phones (Tea) into the harbor.

Did Fon just get a whole new market segment?

I'm in the US, so I checked out the http://en.fon.com/ page like someone else suggested. I signed right up. The router is $5 plus tax and shipping ($14.10 total) until Nov 8, then it's going to $30, supposedly. It's got Linksys guts in it, so I expect it to be a fairly decent consumer-level piece.

I'm not interested in hacking the device or anything, but I am interested in using it and promoting the service. The more of these there are in the wild, the more opportunities there are for me, as a registered user, to get online with them for free. Alternatively, I could just get the 50% of the $3 day fee, if I actually lived somewhere urban. Throwing one of these onto a separate subnet in an urban office would probably generate at least a little revenue, plus provide a limited source of advertising through the customizable log-in page.

In general, hacking direct access to the serial port takes a pretty high level of user to accomplish, and in the end it saves an outlay of what? $30-$50? Even with the CGI backdoor, how many people outside of the geek community even know what to do when presented with a shell interface? I think it's very cool to reverse engineer things, but I don't think it's a threat to the business model at all. I'd compare it to the amount of WRT54G's in place globally vs. the ones that actually run DD-WRT. And that's an easy/useful hack. The bonus of hacking is that it gets press. If not for this article, I'd have never heard of Fon.com.

They also provide a firmware for your existing WRT54G/GS so you can start up with them for free. Buffalo routers are supported too. https://en.fon.com/downloads/

What's FON?: http://en.fon.com/info/whats_fon.php

I'm in the US, so I checked out the http://en.fon.com/ page like someone else suggested. I signed right up. The router is $5 plus tax and shipping ($14.10 total) until Nov 8, then it's going to $30, supposedly. It's got Linksys guts in it, so I expect it to be a fairly decent consumer-level piece.

I'm not interested in hacking the device or anything, but I am interested in using it and promoting the service. The more of these there are in the wild, the more opportunities there are for me, as a registered user, to get online with them for free. Alternatively, I could just get the 50% of the $3 day fee, if I actually lived somewhere urban. Throwing one of these onto a separate subnet in an urban office would probably generate at least a little revenue, plus provide a limited source of advertising through the customizable log-in page.

In general, hacking direct access to the serial port takes a pretty high level of user to accomplish, and in the end it saves an outlay of what? $30-$50? Even with the CGI backdoor, how many people outside of the geek community even know what to do when presented with a shell interface? I think it's very cool to reverse engineer things, but I don't think it's a threat to the business model at all. I'd compare it to the amount of WRT54G's in place globally vs. the ones that actually run DD-WRT. And that's an easy/useful hack. The bonus of hacking is that it gets press. If not for this article, I'd have never heard of Fon.com.

They also provide a firmware for your existing WRT54G/GS so you can start up with them for free. Buffalo routers are supported too. https://en.fon.com/downloads/

What's FON?: http://en.fon.com/info/whats_fon.php

I'm in the US, so I checked out the http://en.fon.com/ page like someone else suggested. I signed right up. The router is $5 plus tax and shipping ($14.10 total) until Nov 8, then it's going to $30, supposedly. It's got Linksys guts in it, so I expect it to be a fairly decent consumer-level piece.

I'm not interested in hacking the device or anything, but I am interested in using it and promoting the service. The more of these there are in the wild, the more opportunities there are for me, as a registered user, to get online with them for free. Alternatively, I could just get the 50% of the $3 day fee, if I actually lived somewhere urban. Throwing one of these onto a separate subnet in an urban office would probably generate at least a little revenue, plus provide a limited source of advertising through the customizable log-in page.

In general, hacking direct access to the serial port takes a pretty high level of user to accomplish, and in the end it saves an outlay of what? $30-$50? Even with the CGI backdoor, how many people outside of the geek community even know what to do when presented with a shell interface? I think it's very cool to reverse engineer things, but I don't think it's a threat to the business model at all. I'd compare it to the amount of WRT54G's in place globally vs. the ones that actually run DD-WRT. And that's an easy/useful hack. The bonus of hacking is that it gets press. If not for this article, I'd have never heard of Fon.com.

They also provide a firmware for your existing WRT54G/GS so you can start up with them for free. Buffalo routers are supported too. https://en.fon.com/downloads/

What's FON?: http://en.fon.com/info/whats_fon.php

First at all, it isn't called "La Fonera". "La" in Spanish is just the "The" article, making it the Fonera, a Fonera, or how you want to call it.

I am aware that "La" is an article in Spanish, but the device is called "La Fonera" on the german FON website ("Hol dir deine gratis La Fonera" == "Get your free La Fonera").

I would really like to see universal coverage, and low bandwidth by throttling socket connections to keep people from abusing the system would be OK. There would still be a huge market for high speed wireless, cable, and fiber, but a backgound universal lower level of service system would be a good infrastructure investment.

I would much rather that such a network be created by the citizens than some government monopoly (presumably with eavesdropping and censorship built in). Hopefully what you describe will eventually created by things like the FON wifi community.

1. Pop over to http://www.fon.com/. 2. Sign up, and drop five bucks for a Fon-equipped wireless router. 3. Plug it into your net and secure your other WAP. 4. Make money off your formerly freeloading neighbors -OR- get free WiFi access in some 80,000 locations worldwide (and growing).

I know this goes completely against the 'American way' but maybe it should be considered. Besides, WE paid for the telco networks, WE subsidize them in taxes that never end. WE have put up with their BS for long enough. The bloated telco's are already facing their demise as communication becomes cheaper and cheaper thru alternative sources, and will eventually be completely free or near to it for the majority.

Let's use 'eminent domain' the right way, not against the citizens, but against the corrupt telcos whose only interest is their own survival and profits - not the consumer.

On the flip side - there is already a company building a free wi-fi network, you share your wi-fi and you get to use everyone elses too - free - or don't share it and only pay a fair $2 a day to use other people's wi-fi hotpsots. Check out: http://en.fon.com/

From: http://es.fon.com/shop-eu/product_info.php?product s_id=28

"Remember that you must register your router and keep it on at all times. This great low price helps us build the FON Community. Therefore, we will apply a $/ 45 surcharge on all routers that have not been registered within 30 days of having made the purchase. Once you have registered your router, you must keep it running and available for all other FONEROS. We are not making any money off of the sale of these routers. So all we are asking is that you use the router as a FONERO. If you have any problem registering your router or getting it working, one of our support geeks will lend you a hand."

While the effort is worthwhile, and while it may be against just about everyone's ToS, it's still not worth it for the rural people. The closest metro area is 20 miles away, with the nearest village 4 miles away. This view shows my travel area (go to the 9th zoom in level..that's nine steps up from the bottom). Sure, there's lots around Cleveland (to which I haven't traveled in ~6 years), but barely any around Pittsburgh and north of it.
 
FON just seems like it's going to be better for suburbanites or urbanites who regularly walk around their city, not for those who drive twenty minutes to get milk.

Try this one if you like a little more info.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/275421_goog le27.html

And Google if you want more.

The software is available for download if you already have a compatable router.
The $5 router is new but the warranty is null since the firmware is flashed with the FON version.

The firmware can split your bw between two ssid's one for FON and the other for private. Since the routers listed can be used with linux in the first place, (even the low ram ones per a Slashdot story from the past) then it is a good guess as to what the firmware is based on.

The router will indeed FON home (User>pass auth) and the interoperability and potential multipath routing seems inevitable when the density reaches a critical point in a particular area. (yes this is a guess rather than something in the site literature.)

But it seems like a good deal with little risk to the hot spot provider. The basic access is tracked and limited to users by password whether Linuses, Bills or Aliens.

ISP's who like to limit their users deserve to feel the slight pain of savvy users leaving for better ISP's.

I intend to dedicate one of my public IP's to the system and my ISP does not give a rats patoot what I do with is as long as I pay my bill and abuse does not get any valid complaints. I moved from comcast long ago and since my qwest router is bridged from my isp, Qwest has no say in how my bandwidth is used either.

  Of course I live in a city where my wifi detector finds free open signals by the dozens at nearly every traffic light, I suspect some folks here will split off a portion of their BW if there is a potential of making a little money for their service.

I will become a Linus just to help the concept of universal wi-fi along if only a little bit. I am going to upgrade my wifi net anyway once the N becomes semi standard so I will have 3 FON compat routers to share with the neighborhood while keeping my private network kinda tight.

But go to the site and read for your self the details of the program.
http://en.fon.com/info/whats_fon.php

Then make your own pithy comments here. :)

From their "shop":

Remember that you must register your router and keep it on at all times. This great low price helps us build the FON Community. Therefore, we will apply a $/€ 45 surcharge on all routers that have not been registered within 30 days of having made the purchase

So if you buy the router and don't activate it, they'll charge you $45 or €45 depending on where you live? It isn't really clear which value they go by, but I imagine it depends on what currency you used to purchase it. Personally, I think it's better for them to charge a flat €45 since it's worth almost 1.5 times the dollar at this point.

I'm glad to hear there is a non JTAG way of getting a new bootloader on the WRT54G v5 routers. If you have the option however, I think the best bet would be to avoid version 5 altogether, as it has the weakest hardware (ie, less RAM/FLASH) of the line so far. If you plan to hack your router (ie, 3rd party firmware), consider a WRT54GL so you have room to play (or an older WRT54G V4, V3, V2).

In related news, FON is selling a WRT54GL for $5 + shipping, but with some strings attached. You have to register with them and make it available for their customers' VoIP (failure to results in a $45 surcharge). So if you reflash it, I suspect you would be in violation of their terms.

Setup an open Wifi access point today!
WiFi Internet Access Everywhere
FON, share locally, enjoy globally!

OOps forgot to add the links
Porting GPS to 770
FON

Last week, Google Inc. (GOOG) and EarthLink Inc. (ELNK) became the leading bidders for building a Wi-Fi network in San Francisco, a project that would make it the largest city in the nation to offer a free service.
Google has also invested in Fon an open wireless initiative to encourage deployment of Foneros. Google game plans are quite hard to understand

I am not sure where I have read, Gigaom or some other Blog, that Japanese company DoCoMo will leave no stone unturned to kill VoIP based Mobile technology in Japan as they have invested heavily in deploying 4G networks. Well, the Asian (not quite sure of the EU) telecom market is already dirt cheap and I wonder why would VoIP Cell or Mobile phones be sought there, silly, to make it still cheaper ? FREE ? But Asians are cell savvy and look for value added services rather than prices. Quite an interesting puzzle for telecom strategists ;-)

I did look into this as a sort of half-way house between total openness and total closed, think it's been on /. before. You're supposed to be able to limit how much is available to the outside world.

http://en.fon.com/info/what-is-fon.php

Would be cool if it took off, though when I tried it the firmware didn't seem to work particularly well, it wouldn't let my Palm connect so I gave up. Perhaps when it's had more time to mature this could be a compromise...

Have a look at Fon, which is a wifi sharing scheme (backed by Google/Skype/Ebay).

The article didn't really tell too much about what's distinctive about FON, so I went to their website here:

http://en.fon.com/

And of course, their blog: http://blog.fon.com/en/

It still isn't too clear though on what the advantage is of having a "Linus" hotspot instead of just having it be open-access. My guess is that the main benefit is that hotspot users are authenticated with a "global" ID, which would help deter abuse, spamming, etc.

The article didn't really tell too much about what's distinctive about FON, so I went to their website here:

http://en.fon.com/

And of course, their blog: http://blog.fon.com/en/

It still isn't too clear though on what the advantage is of having a "Linus" hotspot instead of just having it be open-access. My guess is that the main benefit is that hotspot users are authenticated with a "global" ID, which would help deter abuse, spamming, etc.

http://www.fon.com/

From their Forums. "ejovi; PostPosted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 01:05 FON creates two seperate networks. A local network for yourself and your household and a seperate network for users connecting through the wireless lan (external users). There is a firewall between the two." http://boards.fon.com/viewtopic.php?t=5 Maby DDwrt can do that but it's not the default. I'm interested in trying out their firmware just to keep my wlan seperate from the open acess.

The guys from FON were recently at ETel in San Francisco. There are also Aliens, which are the people who are willing to pay for access.

Linuses: People who will let others (Aliens and other Linuses) use their links, if they in turn can use other Linuses links.

Bills: People who will let others (Aliens) use their links, for a percentage of the profits.

Aliens: People who are willing to pay Bills to use their links (and since they pay, they can use Linuses links), but aren't willing to share their own connections.

For more information about the different types of users, see http://en.fon.com/info/linus-meet-bill-meet-an-ali en.php