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Google and Skype in Startup to Link Hotspots

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the resistance-is-futile dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google and Skype are investing in a new startup (FON, the Spanish startup) that plans to help hotspot owners charge for Wi-Fi access points. The plan outlines two different classes of customer; "Linus" members, named after Linus Torvalds, will share their hotspot with other Linus members for free and "Bill" members, named after Microsoft's Bill Gates, will charge for access to their hotspot. FON will get some of that revenue, and share it with ISPs."

5 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Aliens by Qwell · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

    --
    As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
  2. Re:Fantastic names by agurkan · · Score: 4, Informative

    I personally think Richard would be more appropiate than Linus. The freeness of Linux in particular and GNU/Linux in general comes from RMS's ideals, or more precisely his expression of some ideals common to many people. Linus has done a great job, but the antithesis of Windows is GNU.

    --
    ato
  3. FON's website by FleaPlus · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:FON's website by raju1kabir · · Score: 4, Informative
      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.

      Are you sure you read the site? The reason to run a Linus hotspot is so that you will get reciprocal access to all the other Linus hostpots out there.

      [And how did parent get modded informative? All it said was that the author didn't have any information to add.]

      --
      "Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
  4. If you know Spain, you'll see it won't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    It seems very nice, but it is not going to work.

    1) The man itself. No one in Spain would buy a used car from Martin Varsavsky.

    2) In Spain it's illegal to resell or even share your Internet connection, the contract with the ISP almost always says so. It can be debatable, but it is what you have signed.

    In fact, FON has been around for some time with very limited success. It gets mentioned in the news just because Varsavsky is a known celebrity in Spanish ISP world.