Monday 28 May 2007

Fonero, fonera, olé

I'm sorry for my decreasing posting activities and also sorry for not keeping up my blog relationships that much in the past few weeks. There is just so much going on in my life right now (which I will write about soon) that I barely spend any time on the web. I promise to get better soon, please forgive me for the meantime!

This weekend I did have some time but no Internet connection, because I spent the weekend in the Swiss alps. It was nice - on Sunday we were able to sit in the garden in tank tops and today it was snowing. Is anybody still insisting that no real climate change is happening? Okay, different subject. Back to the Internet connection... I received two comments to my last post from Peluka and Steven regarding my petition for free WLAN all over the world and they both related to FON:

FON is the largest WiFi community in the world. You can become member and share your wireless Internet access at home and, in return, enjoy free WiFi wherever you find another Fon Access Point. Now that's exactly my point! Why should you pay for Internet access on the go when you have already paid for it at home? So FON decided to help create a community of people who get more out of their connection through sharing. They call members of the FON Community "Foneros". To become a Fonero you need to buy "La Fonera". La Fonera is a special kind of WiFi router - a "Social Router". That’s because when you activate your La Fonera, you become part of the FON Community.

FON is creating a bit too many new words at once for my taste, but I guess that's part of a cult they're trying to build up around this service. This is clearly an interesting concept, but of course only works when they manage to build up a huge community. I hope they succeed.
Due to my busy timetable I haven't properly checked the map yet to find out how well "Foneros" are spread over the world and especially whether there are any in the places I often visit (e.g. windsurfing destinations, Swiss alps). But I'll save that task for another day and rather get some sleep now :)
Good night, Dania

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I use my fon router all the time, and it works perfectly. Fon are also linked with SKYPE including a skype cupon. They have also recently launched the posibility to load "FON" hotspots on GPS devices.