Slashdot Mirror
$5 Social Wi-Fi Router
slashjunkie writes "BBC News is running a story about the Spanish firm Fon, selling subsidized Linksys WRT54GL Wi-Fi routers for $5, in exchange for the buyer agreeing to a 12 month contract of providing access to other Fon users within range. With the financial backing of Google and Skype, their goal is to create Wi-Fi networks, street by street, across Europe and the US. Buyers of the subsidized routers can classify themselves as 'Linuses', whereby they also get free access to all other Fon hotspots, or 'Bills', where they receive 50% of the revenue made by on-selling their Wi-Fi to other Fon users. 'Alien' users can buy 24-hour passes for 3 Euro. To deter misuse, all Fon users must identify themselves by a username and password before they can access the hotspot. As long as the owner's personal LAN is not accessible, this could be a good way to offset the costs of the average geek's bandwidth bill."
Routers are so cheap nowadays (I got my wifi router a few years ago for $25, and wired routers regularly go for $5 or $10), why would you want to get one just a tad bit cheaper for the "privilege" of sharing it with others?
Interesting idea but it has the smell of a dot com idea about it.
Most broadband providers specifically prohibit you from sharing your connection in this manner. If something like this were to become popular they'd just have to start clamping down on it.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
Where do I get my subsidized router from? With my other WRT54G, I can just throttle the bandwidth on the Fon router and get me a nice new toy.
I don't know about the rest of you but with Cox we can't share our Internet connection with other people in that manner. You would probably have to get some kind of agreement with your ISP before they would let you share your Internet connection for a profit.
In Germany the shipping costs 18 Euro - and the router is shipped in three weeks.
I'll take one and be glad to share. Given that the house sits 700 feet from the nearest road and 5 miles from the nearest town, it might not help the cause much, but what the heck.
There is FREE access to the FON network if you've FON router? I guess that article was all about paid stuff?
from fon.com:
Linus
Share your WiFi and get free access in all Fon hotspots worldwide!
Bills
Milk your WiFi! Get paid for sharing your spare bandwidth.
Two different things.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act" -- George Orwell
5e is not the actual cost that the router will cost to you. Besides 5e you have to pay postage and VAT, which in my case made the total cost near 26e. 26e is not that bad, but then again, with that money you can get an basic wireless access point. Thought, if you are moving a lot and need wireless access, then joining Fon would make some sense.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
This product seems like it might work well for a "compile farm starter kit", if you picked up a quad-pack.
But I can't find any mention on the linksys site about the RAM on these gadgets. Is it adequate?
Some gaming consoles might also do, but why feed either Empire?
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I have always wondered why no-one are doing this. I see many ISPs offering routers with wireless as a option.
The pricing model seems a bit optimistic if people live in a area that isn't likely to have many guests around.
I would rather do it the other way around saying that you pay full price for the line and then what you earn is subtracted from the line price first.
TFA forgets to mention that besides "Linuses" and "Bills" there are also "Jobs" users that have same connection speed like users above, but opted to pay twice as much.
839*929
This is a great idea, and one I think will gain a lot of strength as information providers find ways to subsidize lower-cost connections to their services (especially Google). I already co-op with a half dozen of my neighbors to share our Internet bandwidth through WiFi. I don't charge for access, the router is open to all, but it does have a landing page that requests that they pay for what they use. So far our bill is paid about 8 months into the future.
In our neighborhood we already have 4 high speed internet providers, so competition is fierce but pricing is still fairly high due to local government idiocy (they want all the providers to pay a fee to be allowed to serve the area). We even have 2 medium-speed wireless providers who serve our area too, but they're also a bit expensive due to the village fees (how would the village stop them, though?)
This is the right step in the direction of providing inexpensive or free bandwidth to everyone. We don't need cities or governments paying for it, we just need the end profit-makers to subsidize the initial cost. Our connection should happily support 50 households (or more) for basic Internet usage, and if they want to use higher speed services, they're more than free to select from one of the providers available. For more, paying $5 a month for a decent 6 Mbps connection is well worth it, even if we frown on Bittorrent or other massive leach programs.
I've already talked to 3 other people in my neighborhood who are interested in doing the same thing. The plus side is that we communicate better (through a private forum) with each other than I've ever seen in a neighborhood I've lived in. We talk about security issues, odd cars on the streets, and all sorts of issue that people used to think we needed government for.
I really support these systems and would love to know if there is a way to privately sponsor some of these routers so that they're free, or even sponsor the bandwidth charges of people who offer this service to others through their own connection. Anyone know?
Buyers of the subsidized routers can classify themselves as 'Linuses' , whereby they also get free access to all other Fon hotspots, or 'Bills' , where they receive 50% of the revenue made by on-selling their Wi-Fi to other Fon users.
:) And what about Steves (Jobs, not Ballmers) ? Is he behind the masked black alien face ?
Linuses Torvalds and Bills Gates ?
I'm sure there's some hidden message here, but I'm not sure what it means...
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
When this is inevitably used by someone to do something illegal over someone else's connection and it gets traced back, I wonder how they'll work out who is responsible. It could be sort of hard to identify and sue/arrest the real culprit when the general public has tacit permission to wardrive at you.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
What if someone uses your 5 euros ( = 6.5 bucks) subsidized router to download kiddie porn, send hate mail to CmdrTaco or skype Bin Laden?
What do the European laws say about that?
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Am I getting it wrong?
I.-
I like the concept, but I don't think the whole thing has been thought out properly.
In order to safely share your connection, you'd need to make sure that the FON registration process can keep good records of the Fonero users, and that the firmware is able to filter and block access to inappropriate/illegal content (and I'm not convinced it can). Otherwise, users can anonymously use your connection for looking up kiddie porn... which your ISP will have something to say about if it is traced. You'd also have to daisy-chain routers together or somehow segregate this from your internal LAN, which is probably more expense/trouble than it's worth.
Add to this the fact that most ISPs frown heavily on you setting up a public access hotspot with a residential broadband connection (It's against the ToS of mine), and this 5/$5 router becomes more trouble than it's worth.
The only major benefit that I can see is the cheap router. In the UK, a WRT54GL is around £50 (or 70), whereas FON will sell you one for 50 (assuming you just pay the surcharge for not registering) which is just £35.
It's the 12 month thing here, I think anyone who gets one should do an analysis on the loss of bandwidth cost vs the savings made over the 12 months. I would think that for occasional users or families who do not use the internet that much but require networks in order to use computers in different parts of their home then it may be a good deal, but for the typical Slashdot user or anyone who uses the internet heavily then their long term usage may end up being impeaded by other users accessing it. It really depends on what the buyer is using the router for.
Business Voyeur
The WRT54GL is in the mail. Your target is Steve Ballmer. Now GO!
Developers: We can use your help.
Why let who knows how many people drag on your connection when the routers themselves are already cheap? Additionally, there are plenty free hotspots. Why should we build up some network that charges a fee?
If this was an effort to broaden free access nationwide that would be totally different. As it is it's about getting some company richer. I'll pass.
I would say quite an innovative idea.
Here already telecoms are trying to block municipal Wi-FI and are ardent lobbyists against free for all Wi-Fi. Atleast this will bring ubiquitous Wi-Fi at reasonable cost to masses.
Hope that it really kicks off. I predict once this becomes widespread, telecom/cable companies will have another axe to grind.
I wonder. Around here, (formerly) SBC DSL is pretty common (2/3 of broadband is local CATV, 1/3 SBC). A goodly percentage of the SBC users have a 2WIRE wireless router on the air. Moderately unfortunately (for my uses, good for SBC), the 2WIRE system takes users through a wizard that pretty much enforces WEP.
I'm wondering, could SBC/ATT offer such a service in just about no time, using their installed base? Particularly when I use an external antenna, I pick up 2WIRE boxes everywhere. While I doubt they're as advanced as the Linksys routers, it seems like most of the authentication would be at the headend. Would be very valuable for mobile users, unlike the current SBC/ATT 'Freedomlink' Wifi, which is pretty costly (at least if you use their 'roaming partners') for usability in about 5 obscure spots in a big town.
I think most people on here are missing the whole point of these things. Sure you get a $5 router (plus shipping) but that's not the real great part of this company's idea. If you want a cheap access point go to Wal-Mart, if you want free wi-fi wherever you go just go to... uhh wait that doesn't exist yet! At least in my area if you want any wi-fi you have to go to some coffee shop or park in a motel parking lot. The great idea behind this is that you will be able to have free access to all the wireless hotspots you could imagine if people will do this. My router has already been ordered and I've passed their website along to all my friends and relatives hoping that we can help in this great idea.
As to those of you who are worried about reselling our ISP's internet, it's FON's access point so it's not actually your problem. Besides as long as you don't have AT&T what are ya worried about?
Here's a clue - it would probably be best not to call people who you'd like to pay you money "Aliens". Some people might find that a little off-putting. I thought for a moment they were calling Bill and Linus aliens, which, now that I think about it, makes a scary kind of sense.
Mugh?! What's to stop some mischievous oik from hooking up this wonder-router to a box of their choice and arbitrarily siphoning off the fresh packets? Or altering their contents? Or shoving a ruddy transparent proxy that redirects everything to Goatse in the way? Unless there's VPN between user and FON, there's fair scope for naughtiness here.
Not sure where else to submit this query. If I type "routers" into the Slashdot search box and click the button, I get "No stories were found that match your query." Its the same whatever the search term.
Is it just me?
'/me ducks for cover
Read the introduction?
"To deter misuse, all Fon users must identify themselves by a username and password before they can access the hotspot."
I too have given up reading the articles. Perhaps I should follow your lead and give up on reading altogether. :)
I'd get money for having people use my WiFi, then use one of the millions open APs when I go roaming...
Quite seriously, the amount of non-secured APs around my apartment is kinda scary. Then again, I couldn't afford my bandwidth if they didn't exist...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I live in a small town in which almost no matter where I go, there's an open WAP somewhere. Sometimes it's the official free city wireless network, but just as often, it's a private person's wide open router. I haven't paid for personal Internet service in a year or so now, and it's only getting easy (Win XP makes it ridiculously simple).
What stops you from reflashing the $5 router with Linux and blowing off the contract terms that require you to share it? The contract, sure, but are they really going to sue people, and blow all the "goodwill" they're generating, converting it to "illwill"?
I remember eMachines tried something similar, free/cheap PCs in the 1990s bubble, subsidized by ads around the outer margin of the screen. They sank and wound up selling the PCs for $100 to anyone who'd pay, and just letting those who wouldn't pay keep them without making too much noise about it.
--
make install -not war
Obviously your name is Bush, isn't it?
Try this one if you like a little more info.g le27.html
:)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/275421_goo
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.
*"Cogito Ergo Liberalis"*
Doesn't this violate most ISP's terms of service? I am sure that mine bars me from sharing freely with others, let alone for financial gain. For this to be perfectly legal, wouldn't you have to buy some sort of commercial-grade access? Are things different over in Europe?
Get the router for $5, install it.
Get your address posted on their web page.
Have your ISP cancel your service for violation of TOS, or force removal of FON router.
Pay full price of the router to FON for violation of their TOS.
Where do I need net access the most?
At home - OK, covered.
In the car - Not often, but when I do I use cell phone GPRS via bluetooth to a laptop or PDA. Do I really want to be driving around to find a Fon hotspot (fuel costs and inconvenience) and how many will be on the side of motorways and main roads anyway?
At airports - Yeah, right, the paid wifi service providers are really gonna let this happen. Stand by for clause changes in all shop leases to prevent them having a Fon router.
At railway stations - See above.
When I am walking through a shopping centre - Well, maybe (but not very often), but see airports.
When I am walking through the suburbs - What, carrying a laptop or PDA out in the open? OK, maybe (but not often)
Pubs and restaurants? Hmm - let's see... "...well Mr (or Ms) landlord; you can have a 'free-ish' router in return for a service elsewhere that might be handy to you once in a while (or will give you a small kickback) - OR you can spend some money on a 'proper' system with controlled access and we'll maintain it for you and split the profits..."
So is Fon going to blanket cover massive swathes of the globe - nah, you'll end up with lots of little clusters and big gaps inbetween.
Nice idea, happy to see it take off, but am very sceptical.
AT&ROFLMAO
My mother leaves in what was my home (before I moved to UK). She has a 512 DSL connection that we use every now and then with Skype. We also use it to download some BIG torrents (when I am at Mexico) without fear :-)
But aside from that the connections is sitting there 24/7 and she pays something like $40 a month (I do not know if that is the price now, although I believe it was like that 1 year go, but with Telmex you can bet it is more now).
If I had the oportunity to share my connection and charge someting I will setup the account for her immidiatley.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/ 06/0410244&from=rss
reenigne
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.
Colin Dean Go a year without DRM
Who would be liable for illegal downloads? You might be getting a $65 router for free but at the same time - you might end up with a huge hassle for usage.
www.wildpad.com
So is Fon going to blanket cover massive swathes of the globe - nah, you'll end up with lots of little clusters and big gaps inbetween.
I agree, partially. I don't see Fon covering massive swaths of the globe by themselves, but I do see Fon and hundreds of other companies and organizations covering significant amounts and agreeing to share access with one another. I see Google taking a role in making this happen. How many citywide wireless projects are going on right now? I know there is a county wide one under development here, and much of that area is fairly rural. Building a reciprocity agreement between these projects benefits everyone, especially when you get to wireless points peering with one another and completely bypassing the traditional telco's network for significant amounts of traffic.
I'm sure there will be a lot of dark spots for a long time, but I do see this sort of thing as a practical solution with no unsolvable technical hurdles.
If any of you slug's bring your wireless devices any where my coffie house i will have your arrested for stealing the customers from my business who sit in my parking lot and surf the net. Only coffie drinkers and guys who sit in trucks with a laptop are allowed near my wifi..
Unless they also happen to automatically configure themselves in relation to nearby fon routers and perform mesh routing. If it does that then we could eventually have a completely wireless network, independant of the traditional telecommunication companies.
Deleted
"[Fon's] goal is to create Wi-Fi networks, street by street, across Europe and the US"
Isn't a company called Linksys also doing something like this? They seem to have pretty good coverage these days, and they don't even require a login. I think they may be using a different network topology, though.
How long until school's ban this "social" router?
...Linii?
this idea will really take off when the first wifi/gsm enabled cell phones with VOIP clients (skype, google talk, gizmo, gaim (VOIP coming soon) etc.) will be available...
if these phones show up (they will, although they probably will never be subsidized by the large providers), I'll install the FON firmware the day I get the phone.
and please no VONSA (voice over NSA) jokes here =)
There wouldn't be one available when you actually needed it.
It would be much more interesting to see something covering large sections of city in dual router configuration. Think backbone network with 5,8GHz routers within 200-300m range from each other, only relaying traffic having 2-3 2,4GHz ~100 meter range routers working as access points on different channels pointed at different directions creating cells using directional antennas.
This would allow actual wireless roaming on larger scale, outside range, you could fallback to gsm/edge/etc.
But that kind of system becomes so expensive that you'd need some serious funding to actually implement it.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
I keep my WiFi locked down tight, when I'm not home I turn off the WiFi of my router and unscrew the antenna.
Why?
I don't want to be sued. If someone jumps on my connection, gets a million mp3s, downloads movies, and shares copies of everything I'll have the MPAA and RIAA all over me. If they don't care when an old grandmother doesn't even have a computer or an internet connection they'll be sure to sue me who has both, even if it's not me getting the files.
The USA is the most dangerous place in the world to have an open WiFi connection. This whole FON movement is just giving the lawyer wolves a whole new pack of clueless sheep to sue.
Indeed. There's more Ballmer bashing than you can shake a chair at.
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
And that's why the ultimate goal of this sort of thing is to use the routers actually as routers, by routing packets between them in addition to sending to and from end users.
I haven't actually tried it (because I have too little time and money, live too far away from my friends), but I've considered setting up a mesh using 802.11g to end users and 802.11a with point-to-point links for the backbone. I think it could work!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I live in a suburban neighborhood and it still wouldn't make much sense.
From the corner of my street you can see 17 wifi networks, and many of them are unprotected. It seems unlikely that a FON user will ever feel the need to come across my network.
I like the idea, but city access points will provide so much more value to FON and cost their operators so much more that they'll likely end up with a bunch of APs buried deep in suburbia.
i noticed a few people have responded with, "*yawn*, why would i do this when i already have a great connection" or "why would i expose myself to risk"? one thing to remember is that europe for the most part isn't as connected as the us -- and also isn't as paranoid.
i just returned from berlin (go deutschland!) and my friend was doing good to have an ISDN connection -- dsl isn't available in his area yet. and, as i mentioned, europeans don't have to worry so much about secret rooms in AT&T switching stations, nor monitored bank accounts, etc.
there is something like this in berlin based on oslr, but the coverage is spotty, and i was having trouble getting it working on my mac (admittingly, i am not an uber-geek).
in the states, it would be hard for this to take hold because of cheap broadband, threat of riaa lawsuits, and huge distances between homes. in europe, something like this could really take hold.
mr c
"Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." - R. Feynman
Fon's business model sounds a lot like Joltage (http://www.wired.com/news/wireless/0,1382,51353,0 0.html) who made a run at this back in 2001 (unsucessfully, I might add).
Okay, I am paying an exorbitant $40 per month for my cable modem, and even though I have not read the TOS, I am sure somewhere in it, it says it is for my private use only and I can not share it with people outside my household or something very similar to that. FON on the other hand, with the financial push from google and skype, is telling people to share their bandwidth for profit, so that more people can use googles and skypes of the cyberspace, without having to pay the ma bell or ma cable. How does it going ot sit with them while the same google and skype are crying foul when net neutrality is shot down in senate/house ?
Google and skype has their own best interest in sight when they are investing in FON, not net access for everyone, socialistic idea. Even though I am a proponent of the net neutrality, I can not justify this FON push. It is noice to be able to access the net everywhere with one single bill I am pying at home but we all live in the real world and know that it ain;t gonna happen. At least not with the current status quo.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
Would be if there was some breakthrough in wireless tech, that greatly increased range (on the order of miles) and bandwidth (at least a couple Mbps), while eliminating the line-of-sight requirement, wtih a built-in relay function (eg A wants to talk to C, but isnt in range. B is somewhere between them, and in range of both). Then, everyone gets one, and the wired Internet (and the megacorp control of it as well) could start to (very) slowly be phased out.
The Fon deal is that you either flash your own Linksys or buy it pre-configured for a fiver in order to make it work as an access point for the Fon network.
Fon customers (not anonymous passerbys) will identify themselves, log into the Fon network and gain access to your Linksys AP.
From there they will VPN into the Fon backbone and access the Internet, this way they don't see your home LAN.
If somebody uses your Fon network to do bad things, he will 1) appear as coming from the Fon network and 2) be identifiable with the same level of confidence you can identify users of other wifi services.
You become a Fon customer either by paying (Aliens) or by sharing your bandwidth (Linuses).
Around Madrid (Spain) I already found several Fon APs!
If the security of the whole thing is well designed and implemented I don't see any issue!
For the love of (insert Deity here) I did RTFA and I even read the article you linked to, and neither of them says that the router allows the owner to limit the amount of bandwidth that FON visitors use; nor do they say that my own traffic would get priority. That's too bad because if I were sure that my own traffic would get priority I likely would go ahead and order one of those routers...
Penny - plain text accounting
Robert X. Cringely discussed something similar on 27 May 2004. His discussion was in the context of VoIP providers trying to get a wi-fi network rolled out, but without the VoIP provider needing to buy & operate thousands of APs.
FON sends you a WRT54GL running a modified version of OpenWRT. It uses a simple script to hit up a heartbeat url to let FON know you're using the router. You can easily install your own firmware such as a unmodified OpenWRT or DD-WRT and run a cron job to hit up the heartbeat page. $5 linux router becomes yours to use as you see fit ;)
Here's some URLs breaking it down:
http://www.twindx.com/node/106 and http://www.twindx.com/node/109
Everyone is talking about the FON logs.
INAL, but I bet that if you're name is on a cable connection at a private residence and the FBI can track it to an illegal transaction, the burdon of proof will be on you. Sure you'll have your chance to explain the FON connection and point to their logs (if they exist). But that's only after the Feds bust down your door, pin you to the gound, shove an automatic rifle in your neck, haul you away, confiscate all your computer equipment, assign you to a public defender that graduated last in his class, set a court date, etc.
It doesn't seem worth the risk to me.
I actually had one of those machines, from a company called freepc. I faithfully kept all the terms of the contract, which were to last about 3 years. About 8 months into it, I got a phone call from them saying they were going out business, and I was free to keep the pc. They told me how to remove the ad software (which I remember to be quite simple, and if I had cared to figure out how to remove it, it wouldn't have been too much trouble). It was a compaq machine, celeron 300, and I still have it, waiting for a rainy day to install linux on it...
Slashdot must be the only place on Earth where posting instructions on how to make sure you won't ever meet any girls whenever you're forced to leave your mother's basement will get you positive moderation and street cred.
Karma: Positive (probably because of superiour intellect)
...politicians are busy trying to outlaw grass-roots wifi networks in the interests of the corporations, under the excuses "War on Terror" and "Child Safety."
Stick Men
Until you max out your own connection:
Because signing up as a NetShare Admin means you will be sharing your existing broadband connection, you will need to expect some decrease in your own service levels the more NetShare Customers you sign up. If you experience a serious decrease in speed levels as you add more customers, you may want to upgrade your broadband connection. If you do not wish to upgrade, we recommend communicating to your NetShare Customers what you expect their usage patterns to be. Netshare FAQ
Congratulations, you are now minimum-wage tech support and full-time System Nazi,...err, Network Administrator.
Never forget that you take the hit, not Speakeasy, when anything goes wrong:
Speakeasy believes that shared wireless networks are in keeping with our core values of disseminating knowledge, access to information and fostering community, provided this usage does not have an adverse impact on the services of other customers, does not involve any illegal activity and is not otherwise in violation of any aspect of our existing Terms Of Service. Please remember that the Speakeasy account-holder is responsible for all activity originating from their DSL line, even if it is the result of other users on a shared wireless connection.
Bandwidth is money. And ISP's offer their services with the idea in mind that people are going to utilize their connection 24x7. If people start turning their high speed connections into paid services and re-selling then the bandwidth useage goes up and the ISP's are going to do something to curtail it. Either limiting connections, speeds, or raising prices.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl/76331315/in/ photostream/
Simply observe the chat above. I tried to make it abundantly clear that I could use 100% of my bandwidth 100% of the time. Within 6 months, after repeated harassment, they gave me an ultimatum: Use less than 100G per month, or be terminated.
Ultimately I was terminated. A few months later, I finally got $50 back; originally they were trying to charge me the $300 cancellation fee even though it was they who cancelled me, not the other way around.
In talking with thier esclation director, he admitted that I was having zero impact on network performance.
And, they say "no bots". And they consider bittorrent a fucking bot, if you'll believe that.
This was AFTER I installed a scheduler that basically only downloaded at 10% capacity during business hours. That wasn't good enough.
Buyer beware. SpeakEasy is nothing but another faceless corporation in my eyes. I've returned to the land of Mom-and-Pop ISPs. Silcon.com doesn't have great performance, but they leave me alone.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
Sure portable Wearable Computing would be nice too.
Even a cellphone access would be nice.
Perhaps soon I can buy a 803.11g cellphone.
But we are talking about the last mile here.
You join the last mile net by putting a $5 router at home.
And you get access to all the other routers.
As for me I will just plug in my old 486 with two nic's in,
that I use to gateway my LAN. Or you can just plug your desk top
in directly. You see the WRT54G has a 4 port hub built in. It
also has the 5 null modem port, But you will not need that.
I could not find a port side picture, but I did find a block diagram
of the wrt54gl.
Its the same format as the wrt54gs I got for my Dad.
I did not see what the bandwidth was, but in the Old
Google rumors talked about being able to buy into
faster bandwidth for a nominal fee.
As I have said before You all can can put a tower
on my land if you provide me with an Internet feed.
So, put their router behind your own - say, in a DMZ - and QOS it to your heart's desire. Problem solved. No?
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
Let me see...
...) outweigh the benefits of free wi-fi at some places or minimal revenue from a few users.
Risks/Costs...
-download quota gets used up (as far as I see Fon doesn't have throttling mechanisms in place)
-your connection being used for illegal stuff, such as
--attacks on networks
--spamming
--child pron
-legal action from your current provider
Benefits...
+maybe you can use someone else's Fon hotspot
+you will get (at most) $1 per day and user
+a decent wireless router for 2/3 off (including shipping)
Sorry, even though I'm living in a national capital with quite a few Fon hotspots around, the risks and associated costs (if I got sued I'd need to pay a lawyer,
where's all that Karma?
FON, means Google does not have to run the fiber.
Fiber is over rated any way.
The FON system has 3 types of users.
Bill's connect to the Internet and pay the telco.
Linus's provide routers a , for access.
Aliens's Pay the Bills for access.
This way all benefit.
This only has to be a last mile network.
FON does not need to be an Internet in its self.
As for Googles dark fiber its a way to provide
more Bill type access points.
I was reading the Comcast Access agreement and you
are agreeing to a single family usage.
So there is that problem.
The Bills types still need better access providers.
The current telcos may not allow any thing social.
All the telcos want is your money.
Well, The year was 1994, the FCC sided with the telco's
and did not give us the air waves.
Now we think the short range 803.11 is all there is.
But for this to work in places that are not packed like
big cities we need the range.
So its the FCC that is sticking it to us.
And poring out cash into the telco's
With the FON network we would not have cell phone bills.
Since every other house or all the nerd houses would have a FON.
That more routers then the telco's have now.
Right now only the telco's have the airwaves.
We want our freedom of speech back.
We don't want to pay the Tea tax to the King any more.
I say thrown it in to the harbor.
Let the school save a few bucks to spend on the
education of our children.
Back in 1994 Apple tryed to get the FCC to allow
home users to use a 10 to 15 km range Wifi,
not 803.11, nic.
So you could just as well call then Apples,
or Linuses. Perhaps with the OSS connection
Since this is little known
the OSS connection is easier to make.
Today we are all aliens.
Time to get some Bills and Linuses, out there.
First off you will be a common Carree. /should not be, your fault.
If the law is written incorrectly that needs to be fixed.
But that's not news.
So its not,
Its true 803.11 has a can not interfere
clause, the telco simple has to think up
an excuse and you have unplug your hardware.
That's the FCC for ya. It does not matter
that your hardware is compliant at all.
Why wouldn't they ship it to us? I want one
I find this operation highly suspicious. First, from a (potential) user's point of view:
Sharing your DSL or cable connection is most likely against your ISPs terms and conditions. While there's a couple of ISPs allowing or even encouraging private sharing of a connection, FON's model is effectivly resale of bandwidth: even if you're a "Linus", your still getting a monetary value-equivalent for the service you're providing. I don't remember ever seeing an IP service allowing for resale of bandwith for less than USD/EUR 100 a month; usually, they're a lot more. So if your ISP finds out, they will either terminate your account, or back-bill you for business service. Not nice.
Legal responsibilites are even worse: while FON's T&C try to imply that the person using your shared connection will be responsible for any illegal or otherwise infringing activity, they disclaim any responsibility for it. It other words, the onus of proving that someone else did whatever happened is on you , not on FON, or anybody else. Since the contract between you and FON is likely not enforcable, (and the contract might well be irrelevant when it comes to criminal proceedings,) it's a massive risk to open up your connection to complete strangers. Even worse, FON does not allow you to limit what FON users can do over your access point; you must not modify their firmware, and they might change it at any time.
In other words, they completly control the situation, but you're completely responsible for the consequences.
If you want to give bandwidth to your neighborhood, I'd rather set up a router with proper filtering, so people can to normal things (surf 80/443, do smtps/pops/imaps, maybe IPsec), but make sure "problematic" stuff is blocked. That's a nice service for people who need basic access (on the move or otherwise), and you can control the exposure somewhat.
I already have this in my neighbourhood, from a competing company called "Linksys"
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
You made the mistake of decribing a US city. Most cities in Europe - where, not coincidentally, Fon is based - are much more densely integrated, with people living upstairs or across the street from most parks, shops and cafés in the city center. This means, for example, that even if the pub owner decides that s/he wants to overcharge for 'Net access, you can just opt for the cheaper option emanating from right upstairs.
There are limitations, of course. Not the least of them is that many European buildings are built with stone and brick. This means that in many cities Fon will have to establish its service literally 'street by street,' as their marketing bumph states.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
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A pile people reading a few pages of text is not going to impact a T1 line(1,4Mb) one little bit. Your WRT54GL runs at 2.6Gb. That's 1000 of people reading shashdot. The problem would be 1000s of people watching TV. But that's not what we are talking about it is? Perhaps that's what the telco's want to sell you?
Also We are not talking about one WRT54GL we are talking about an ad hock grid of them. Your packets routed over the fastest path over the grid. Sure some rural people might over load an extended grid watching TV on it.
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How do you think the Internet as it currently stands today came about?
Why do you think the FON ppl want their wireless routers all over the damn place?
What do you think about having to pay higher usage rates since all the telcos are crying "Woo me, we pay to set up all this network and you ppl just enjoy it without paying us more money - boo hoobity boo"...
*tick-tock, tick-tock*
Got it yet?