This guy needs to get a
job from FON
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200989,00.html
|
Wi-Fi
Company to Sell Routers for Five
Dollars |
|
Monday, June
26, 2006
LONDON
FON, a Spanish start-up on an ambitious crusade to turn home
Wi-Fi
connections into wireless "hotspots" for nearby users, is set to unveil on
Monday a plan to hand out 1 million wireless
routers for just $5 apiece.
FON, which aims
to create a network of home users and small businesses to resell wireless
access to passersby, said on Sunday it will subsidize $60 Cisco (CSCO)
Linksys or Buffalo routers for $5 in the
United States or 5
euros in Europe.
Routers are
small boxes users connect to cable or telephone Internet connections to
broadcast wireless signals to nearby devices, inside a home, business or
surrounding neighborhood.
Juergen
Urbanski, North American general manager, said FON, which in February
raised $21.7 million from backers, including the founders of Google (GOOG)
and Skype,
is looking to turn the brand-name equipment into what it calls "social
routers."
The goal of the
Madrid-based company is to build block-by-block networks of shared
wireless connections around the globe, turning local Wi-Fi users into an
army of "foneros" its term for people who share wireless
access.
As the company's
name implies, FON aims to provide wireless
Internet access not just to computer users but also
for mobile phones and the latest portable gaming devices as they
roam.
(Story
continues below) |
From: Kevin Owen
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:
Monday, June 26, 2006 11:05 AM
To: 'Mike Hall'
Subject: FW: Wireless In Washington
From: Marlon K.
Schafer (509) 982-2181 [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 8:53
AM
To: webmaster;
omimo
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Wireless In Washington
Hiya,
Comments
below.
Marlon
(509)
982-2181
Equipment sales
(408) 907-6910
(Vonage)
Consulting services
42846865
(icq)
And I run my own wisp!
64.146.146.12 (net
meeting)
www.odessaoffice.com/wireless
www.odessaoffice.com/marlon/cam
-----
Original Message -----
From: webmaster
To: omimo
Cc: Marlon Schafer
Sent: Thursday, May 18, 2006 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: Wireless In Washington
I
have forwarded your inquiry for reply.
Mary
----- Original Message
-----
From: omimo
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, May
18, 2006 2:49 PM
Subject: Wireless In Washington
Hi,
I was really
encouraged by your experiences starting up a wireless network
service.
I'm about to
move to a house near Uniontown WA.
mks: Cool.
You'll like it there.
I am sad because I have to give
up my connection that I 'borrow' from my landlord thanks to a small repeater
sitting on his kitchen windowsill and a converted steel salad bowl with my
D-Link USB unit attached. Range: 150 yards with 56Mbps to his home
network.
mks:
Grin
I was so proud of that
hack.
mks: Big
grin!
My new place is about 8km from
one of the local providers antenna's and 13km from anther one. The provider is
First Step Internet out of Moscow, ID.
mks:
Coolness. I know those guys. Good people. Great network.
I've cc'd Kevin from fsr for you.
They have a
1.5 mbps connection for $35/month but want me to use their Trango 5.3/5.8GHz
antenna and a modem of their own spec that they want to sell to me.
In
addition to a $600 setup fee.
mks:
Hmmmm. You sure that's the going deal for a residential connection?
Sounds like a business one to me. Still pretty cheap though, have you ever
paid for a connection to the telco? My last t-1 had a $500 install fee
plus $500 per month and a 36 month contract. I just upgraded to a 10 meg
fiber link that whacked my $5000.00 in install fees!
sigh
There has got to be a way I can
make this happen (and share it with my neighbors hopefully) in spite of the tech
support spiel "we usually don't allow personal equipment to connect due to
variable quality of consumer products".
mks: That's
almost exactly the same language we use. We'd also not let you "share"
with your neighbors. That's really not sharing, it's stealing. When
you buy a connection it's for YOUR use not everyone elses. We pay for your
access based on what you do, if you do too far above the average (as you would
when "sharing") we lose money on the account. Lose too much money and no
one will get service.
mks: The way
that *we* manage that is to charge a per bit fee. You get a gig of data
with your monthly account. After that you have to buy the extra gigs you
use. And we're very expensive for overages. We do not allow you to
run servers either. Even on the business accounts, if you want to host
email, put it on our servers, then it's our fault when it gets hacked into and
generates an extra couple of thousand in upstream bills on
month!
The house has
a couple of new, and currently redundant, dishnetwork dishes with three
feedhorns, couldn't I use these somehow?
mks: Nope.
I guess you *could* but it would be more trouble than it would be worth.
In the end it would cost you more money than doing it right.
I sure hope
you have some advice.
mks: I sure hope
you liked my advice!
