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$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?
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
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.
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
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?
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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Umm, it's not hidden at all. 'Bills' want cash for any resources provided, just like Mr. Gates. 'Linuses' trade their resources for goodwill, just like our favorite champion of OSS.
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.
The WRT54GL is in the mail. Your target is Steve Ballmer. Now GO!
Developers: We can use your help.
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?
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"*
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
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.
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.
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.
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