IP Democracy: Time Warner to Allow Customer-Created Hot Spots

Time Warner Cable and Wi-Fi start-up FON are slated to unveil today a program that allows Time Warner customers to create their own Wi-Fi hot-spots, a practice that has been accepted in Europe but hasn’t emerged in the U.S. Fon, founded in Spain and backed by big-ticket investors including Google and Skype, sells (and more frequently gives away) a router called La Fonera, that splits the Wi-Fi connection in two, allowing the broadband customer to sell part of the signal to the public.

Fon’s goal is to take a swipe at the huge fees that Starbucks and other convenience Wi-Fi outlets charge travelers desperate for a connection. The public portion of the split Wi-Fi signal could be sold to harried Internet surfers at a cut-rate price, say $2 or $3 per day instead of $9.95 or $10.95 or $12.95.

Om, btw, had the scoop on this deal almost three weeks ago.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on April 23, 2007 9:47 AM to IP Democracy