Comments on: Taking Wi-Fi power to the people

Spanish start-up FON will give away Wi-Fi routers to spur the creation of its grassroots network in San Francisco.
Photo: Wi-Fi giveaway

[techisgood]

Economics says this is a silly idea.

Unless service providers are will to cut down the price of providing internet service to the home, I don't see the benefit of sharing my internet service so that FON can make money.

[cxar71]

exchange...

Your profit is in the fact that you will be able to access the Internet via other foneros's , so Fon users are called, wi-fi access point. You trade part of your bandwith at your home with some of the bandwidth "owned" by others... it's the same concept behind P2P, and recent history told us P2P was not killed by economy's rules at all, it rather told us that those rules were shaken to their very foundations by P2P. The only enemy Fon can fear is the law... I live in Italy, and here you can't transmit on the wi-fi wavelength if you're not an internet provider or an authorized institution, so a fonero sharing his/her bandwith would be abusively transmitting and therefore an outlaw. Thus, I think you should just appreciate to be able to, at least, try and evaluate such a chance.

[jonytk]

see the point

you don't see the point of sharing, uh?,
if you share you'rer conection for free you can conect to internet with your laptop for free, everywhere in the "fon network" with your login username. This is called "linus"
Also if you don't want this fon offers to pay you some of the revenue generated by the "aliens". this is called "Bill's". :)

[terrasegura]

Economics says this is a silly idea. Not.

Sharing services with free riders in order to share their services AS a free rider makes eminent sense. Whether you personally value the service provided you by others depends, of course, on whether you have any need for it. If you do home swapping, then you are using the same model as Foner. If you never travel then you'll not have any need of it and therefore will value it low enough that your resentment of the profit made by the coordinator (Foner in this case, the home-swapping agency in the example) trumps your enjoyment of the opportunity.

[Blito]

Why not satelite or Cell?

If I can get streaming media over a cell phone why do we ned all of these silly routers and wi fi terminals?

[iRhapsody]

Health-Related

Researcher will claim this would put people in higher risk of cancer.

[Mendz]

Looks good but...

How about security?

Otherwise, I think it's ok. It's like peer-ro-peer on an infrastructural level.

Hope this one kicks-off well.

[Mendz]

Looks good but...

How about security?

Otherwise, I think it's ok. It's like peer-to-peer on an infrastructural level.

Hope this one kicks-off well.

[darhsiung]

Fon Security -- or Lack of

Fon is unsecured, shared text among users.

-www.AeONsafe.com

[darhsiung]

Free computer, Free million, now free AP

First we had free computers, if you tolerate ads. I can't remember the company names.

Then we had iwon with chance to win one million dollars.

Now, it's Fon blowing $20 million giving away APs. In 60 days, the 500 APs will disappear into the closet of old junk. Users who install it, risk losing their broadband service for reselling.

I guess we never learn that technology should be cool products first, and marketing second. Fon clearly has no product and no web2.0 sense.

- www.AeONsafe.com