The company FON has come up with a really interesting concept. Not only are they encouraging people to share or sell their own Wi-Fi broadband access…but they’re also encouraging people who live near Starbucks to share those as well.
We first heard about this company about a year ago. At that stage, they really didn’t have many people on board and it was pretty difficult to find other users to share networks with. But now, we actually have a few in neighboring towns and I’m thinking that on our next road trip, this could be interesting. You can even download the points of interest into a TomTom or Garmin GPS device…which I have to say is really nifty.
If you’ve never heard of FON and don’t feel like visiting their website, here’s what they’re doing. There are three types of users for them: Linus, Alien and Bill.
Linus wants to connect to the Internet everywhere for free…and therefore shares his own connection so that he can have free access to the connection of other users who are selling or sharing as well.
Alien just wants to use Wi-Fi everywhere so he pays a €3/$3 a day user fee to connect to the network. They don’t share their Wi-Fi.
Bill wants to make some money in the process and he might be a business. He makes 50% of the user fee being charged and can advertise himself on his personalized FON page which users see when they search the map of FON users.
To become a user, you just need to sign up with them and buy their special router. The router splits your own connection in two, you control the speed of the connection being streamed out and you connect via Wi-Fi in your home, office or business as usual.
It’s a shame this hasn’t expanded further yet but I’m starting to think it could be interesting to get on the bandwagon…
