Comments on: FON’s global wireless ambitions: what’s taking so long?

By: Estefania

Estefania — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 03:25:52 +0000

what is the difference between open mesh and fon?

By: FoNot

FoNot — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:20:42 +0000

Here in the U.S. you will violate the terms of service of most consumer ISPs if you set up La Fonera. Fon’s own TOS requires you to promise that you are not violating your ISP’s TOS. And Fon makes it impossible to turn off the public connection to the AP unless you hack the device. These kinds of hangups limit the usefulness of Fon. It needs to make more deals with ISPs for the concept to be practical.

By: steven

steven — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:57:00 +0000

fon is an alternative to everything.
1) people who just have an open ap like Bruce Schneier? no logging? no disclaimer? so if he ever get’s misused?
2) open-mesh… nice but how can I plan my holiday and know there is wifi there that I’m allowed to use?
also not yet wispr compliant for my nokia phone

By: KJS

KJS — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:30:47 +0000

Thirding the legal liability argument. Also, a lot of ISPs don’t look fondly upon you letting random people off the street use your connection.

By: Tate Thatcher

Tate Thatcher — Mon, 26 May 2008 14:11:49 +0000

The biggest thing that would prevent me from ever sharing my home cable modem via a FON hotspot is that you’re opening yourself up to a great deal of legal risk. If someone does something bad on your FON hotspot, who do you think the authorities are going to come after?

By: William Ruckman

William Ruckman — Mon, 26 May 2008 13:11:58 +0000

Some people might not like the idea of having to rely on someone else’s system for authentication but rather have full control over their hotspot. So, they either reflash their FON or use other technologies. I am a avid user of open-mesh.com myself.

By: baldbrad

baldbrad — Mon, 26 May 2008 12:22:23 +0000

Why aren’t people using them? Because no one savvy enough to set up one of these wants strangers on their network ON PURPOSE! Also, as long as the world’s largest free WISP (linksys) exists, no end users will use them.

By: David

David — Sun, 25 May 2008 15:29:27 +0000

Certainly, there is a percentage of routers getting repurposed with 3rd party firmware. Some firmware distributions are made solely for the Atheros/Accton routers used by Fon and Meraki. Now, there are more options — open-mesh.com among others.