Ever dreamed of using free Wifi roaming? http://fon.com is a website enabling you to use your home Internet gateway and turn it into a public hotspot for the FON community. Please note that not all ISP’s have signed a deal with FON.
Safe Wifi Roaming in all our cities is within reach, soon
Joining that community will also win you a handsome rebate on a home Internet wi-fi gateway which you can then install at home and turn into a public wi-fi hotspot for the benefit of other “foneros” who will be able to locate you thanks to the online locator provided by FON on their website.
This is a community approach to pervasive networking. This type of approach seems to become one of the major routes for making wi-fi available to all at all times in large cities. It is also safer since only other declared fonero members can use your hotspot.
In Paris, there are rumours (leaked by French Sunday paper JDD) going on at the moment of French ISP “Free” partnering with wi-fi operator “ozone” (a network similar to “cloud” in London) and making wi-fi available to all in Paris by the beginning of 2007.
Whilst the delivery date might seem difficult to believe, I am convinced that in a very short period of time, i.e. less than 18 months from now, we will have pervasive network access in the street, in the home and of course in public places.
Free’s method is different from Fon’s. Their approach is to turn their clients’ home gateways into hotspots de facto, and it is possible that some of them might not like it (but Free’s customer base is made of techno-enthusiasts so it may happen, after all, time will tell).
Orange has declared that their coverage is in fact far better (their market shareMarket share can be defined as a percentage accounted for by a given producer or brand in its own market. Market share = Current market of producer or brand / Current market of product all brands is still approx. 50% in France) and could cook something better than Free and Ozone. Let’s keep our options open, all this is brewing and is bound to happen sooner than later.
