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Fonera 2 To Launch With Extended Functionality
The next installment in the Fonera router family is set to make its debut in a couple of weeks, and the additions to the hardware are relatively impressive. Promising full support for networked storage, automatic downloads, sharing of a USB 3G connection, and a few other perks in addition to the normal range of functionality found in the Fonera routers this package packs quite a punch. "Like the original Fonera and Fonera+ routers, the principals of this hippie-love-in-styled product still apply. You buy the router and hook it up to your internet connection as normal. The trick is that the router shares a part of your bandwidth on a public-facing connection. Other Fon owners can log in and use this public network for free. In turn, you — as a Fonera owner — can travel the world and use other Fon hotspots. It's a neat idea and everybody wins, except the money-grabbing telcos."
Would have a hotspot open to all.
Not just the evil consumers that evilly used their evil money to buy the evil Fonera.
It does this all without a computer, so once you have it set up you can take your laptop out on the road and look forward to a new episode of Criminal Minds when you get home.
Why must people continuously tout the ability of these devices to aid in copyright infringement? Before you stop reading here, consider this: I'm posting this from an Ubuntu laptop. I publish all my software under the GPL and BSD licenses. I publish 99% of my other content under Creative Commons attribution-only licenses. So I'm doing my part to make the IP scene a nicer place.
All that said, it's ridiculous how many people would scream bloody murder over a GPL violation, while they're downloading someone else's content without the publisher's permission. This is beyond dumb, and it's precisely the reason BitTorrent is so poorly regarded by many publishers and ISPs. Yeah, I actually use it to download ISOs and other legal stuff, but to specifically encourage people to use it in ways that defy the law is idiocy.
People can't demand that their own rights be respected while they trample on those of others.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Fon is against the TOS of most ISPs.
Fon is illegal in many areas.
Fon isn't as nice as just running a free hotspot.
Most Fon users signed up back in the day just for the free router, which they promptly flashed with DD-WRT.
Most new Fon users will be attracted to the "Make money with Fon!" option, and WiFi WON'T be free to the masses, but only to other Fon users.
There's a reason Fon never got of the ground, and that's the simple fact that truly free WiFi is easy to come by, especially in areas likely to harbor Fon users.
I think the concept of Fon is excellent. But not all that useful in practice.
I live in a fairly populated area, and there are ~7 Fon routers within a five mile radius of where I live (Go to http://maps.fon.com/ to check around where you live). But every single one of those hotspots is in a residential area. Which is (I think) why I've never actually seen a Fon hotspot when I've been looking for WiFi. And, in the 6 months or so that I've ran a Fon hotspot out of my home, I've had zero outside connections.
I think the key to success for Fon would be to target businesses where people are typically looking for WiFi. Coffee Shops, Hotels and the like. The way it is now, I'd have to camp out on someone's Cul-de-sac to find a Fon hotspot.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
Since users would have to log in with their Fon account, wouldn't the burden be on Fon and not you?
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
I can't speak for anyone else, but it's against my ISP's Terms of Service to provide others with access to my internet connection.
Even if I just left my access point open, I'd be in violation.
If there's anything more important than my ego around here, I want it caught and shot immediately.
I don't really like the fonera scheme. The only reason i even know such thing exists, is because someone brought me a device with the fon sticker on it and i started researching how to remove their customized openwrt with either true openwrt or dd-wrt, which i did successfully, and the device became a regular wifi ap.
Fonera is not even a mesh, its plain regular wifi access, for which you have to have an account with them (centralized), by means of paying a fee, or sharing your wifi. Terrible.
The hardware they use is good, strong and compact, atheros based iirc. These are the same used in the much better open-mesh project, which is what meraki could have been before it corrupted itself into oblivion.
Open-mesh lets you mess with the hardware all you want, does not force you to authenticate to third parties, does not forbid you from modifying/installing your own software. Its the opposite of Fonera and Meraki, in the spirit of the Free Software they run things with; they just provide you the tools (hardware and software) to roll your own wifi mesh and do with it whatever you want, no third parties involved.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.