thelinuxlink.net

I'm not part of the WiFi users world yet. Personally, I don't have much use for WiFi as I'm rarely ever travelling and don't have a house large enough to make me wish for roaming access.

However, I just got an e-mail today from the people who developed FON ( http://www.fon.com ) offering me a free FON wireless router.

In a nutshell, the FON router is a router that allows FON community members free access to WiFi points when they're travelling. As a FON owner, I provide free WiFi to community members who happen to be in my neighbourhood. In return, I get free WiFi access from other community members when I'm in their neighbourhood (if I was the travelling type).

According to the e-mail, since Mandriva is part of the FON development team, they gave 100 people in the Mandriva community offeres for free FON routeres. Since free offers for hardware are few and far between for me, I thought what the heck.

I quickly looked at the FON users map and saw that there are a couple FON routers in Saskatoon already. Looks like there is at least one FON router in most major Canadian cities/towns, which is nice to see.

I like the concept of FON, as well. Certainly is better than "stealing" WiFi access from those who don't know any better. (you know who you are )

The router should be here in a couple of weeks.

Might be nice to interview someone from FON on the show sometime. Here's a contact in the US:

Joanna Rees, CEO of FON USA and president of the US Advisory Board. Joanna began her career at DMB&B and is the founder of VSP Capital. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Posit Science, Sabrix, AccountNow, Danger, QuinStreet, The Threshold Group and the Board of Directors of the NVCA. In 2000, she was named Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, and Entrepreneur of the Year Rising Star by the National Association of Women Business Owners. Joanna is frequently featured in the press (Forbes, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, Business Week), and serves as a spokesperson for the NVCA. She holds an MBA from Columbia University and a BS from Duke University.

Well, I've now joined the FON community.

More on my blog, here and here.

So far, so good.

Interesting concept. What happens when someone downloads kiddie porn from your access point and the police have your IP address? Is there a disclaimer in the contract to address this.

Well, only registered FON users can use the system. So, I suppose, if the cops come looking, they'll have a name and number that I can give them, as I can see which FON users have accessed my router, when they accessed it, and for how long.

Certainly better information than what a Internet Cafe, who's providing free WiFi to the patrons (or who ever), can give them.

Here's an idea: get someone from FON on the show and ask them.

I have been using Fon for over a year now. I started using it when they were giving away Linksys routers with a modified DD-WRT software. Overall, my experience hasn't been too bad. The software is somewhat flaky and it wouldn't let me use my own wi-fi without first firing up the browser and logging in, which is annoying.

Even though you can log into your router and change things around, the Fon software runs a periodic update script that wipes out your changes. If you disable this script, Fon will consider you as not being an active user and basically bar you from using other Fon routers.

As I understand it though, the new routers use two different SSIDs, one of which is your own internal SSID that wouldn't require you to log in. I don't know how hackable the new La Fonera router is -- I never bothered to get one even though Fon offered it to me for free.

I've been toying with the idea of getting rid of the Fon software entirely and do my own DD-WRT installation on the Linksys router, but I feel that Fon gives me an opportunity to stick it to the man (Comcast). I can live with a little bit of inconvenience for that opportunity.

I wanted to be a FONero but still need more info on how to be one here in Mexico.

Patrick wrote:Interesting concept. What happens when someone downloads kiddie porn from your access point and the police have your IP address? Is there a disclaimer in the contract to address this.

This is the FUD from verizon, similar to the FLOSS (who is going to believe the pothead that create this software).

Funny thing is that there are many open hot spots anyway. And beside if they are download kiddie porn, then how can u prove it. I dont think u can see the content of an image through the network.

Jza wrote:I wanted to be a FONero but still need more info on how to be one here in Mexico.

I suppose the first thing to do is get a FON router.

Can you order one by mail?