Wi-Fi sharing start-up FON got a big, really big, boost today from an A-team of investors, raising $21.7 mil. (18 mil. Euros) from Google, Skype and Sequioua Capital in a funding raising round.
Founded by Argentinian entrepreneur Martin Varsavsky, FON, located in Spain, was formed as little more than a concept three months ago and is premised on the idea of community-shared Wi-Fi. “Foneros,” as users of the service are called, download software to their Wi-Fi routers and then share capacity with fellow Foneros, permitting Wi-Fi connectivity to FON members when they are in range of a Foneros Wi-Fi router.
Right now all FON members are “Linus” members (named after Linus Torvalds who created the open source software Linux) and connect to Wi-Fi hotspots of other members at no charge. But, FON wants to start working with ISPs, who typically bar this kind of sharing — although it’s hard for the ISPs to do anything about it.
FON wants to offer a “Bill” service (named after Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates) that allows Bill members to charge a fee for Wi-Fi access and then redistributes the collected fees to affected ISPs. Speakeasy in the U.S. and Glocalnet in Europe have signed up to share in this kind of revenue generation.
Varsavsky spells out more details in his blog item today, including the claim that FON now has over 3,000 members, and that the company hopes to have a million hotspots within four years, far more ambitious than any other Wi-Fi network company.
I must say I’m not 100% clear how all this FON-stuff will work or if the company can ever make money. I’m not alone in this puzzled reaction. Om Malik has a long quote from Wi-Fi expert Glenn Fleishman, which concludes
I’m still pretty dubious about the notion of every home being a hotspot because that requires incredible luck and coordination to get continuous zones of coverage, and outdoor coverage really requires antennas — not just an access point in the window.
But, three pretty smart investors seem to think FON has a chance, so I’m reserving judgment until more specifics of FON’s business plan emerge.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 8:30 PM | Print | Comments (0)A tiny and beautiful community near me called Cabin John has issued an RFI for a community-wide Wi-Fi project. The Cabin John Citizens Association has issued the request to determine the feasibility of a community-based Wi-Fi service for the charming hamlet (population 2,000).
I raise this relatively commonplace development not because it’s so close to home or because it’s an important event but to draw attention to a great site, MuniWireless, that tracks all the efforts across the country to mount community or municipal broadband. Run by attorney Esme Vos, this blog is an excellent resource for finding out who’s doing what in the area of muni-broadband…and it’s not solely focused on munip-Wi-Fi either.
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:27 PM | Print | Comments (0)Courtesy of the ITU Strategy Unit and Policy Newslog, this study by European consulting firm IDate showing the status of fiber-to-the-home deployment in Europe.
The study, commissioned by the European Fiber-to-the-Home Council, shows the status of fiber-based communications across the continent.
By the end of June 2005, there were approximately 646 570 FTTx subscribers in EU 181 and roughly 2.51 millions Homes/Building passed showing a penetration rate of 25.8%. Compared to mid June 2004 this represents a growth of 18% for subscribers and 28% for Homes/Building passed. There are still no major deployments in the 10 new members and we should also notice that nearly 97% of these FTTx Subscribers are concentrated in 5 countries (Sweden, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway).Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 3:14 PM | Print | Comments (0)
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