Oct/Nov 2007

Share your Wi-Fi connection with other users, and in return you will be entitled to use thousands of other users' connections all over the world - free.

It's a challenging concept, and one which has its origins in Spain, where FON was founded a couple of years ago. Since then it has been joined by a rival from the same country, Whisher.

Now BT has bought into the idea in the UK, opening up its broadband network to the FON Community (as it is known). Anyone with a BT Total Broadband account will be eligible to participate.

If you're a BT customer you won't need any extra hardware and you won't pay anything; you just sign on. Users of other broadband networks will also be able to participate, though in this case they will have to buy a special Fonera Wi-Fi router.

 

Downloads by other users (at 512 kb/sec) reportedly don't count against the broadband traffic recorded on your account, and by the same token your usage will be tracked wherever you go.

At the announcement of the deal in October BT said there were currently 500,000 members in the worldwide FON community, and that 3 million of its own customers would be eligible to participate. It reckons there are 190,000 FON hotspots worldwide - a figure which, if true, dwarfs other free Wi-Fi networks.

BT Total Broadband customers will also be able to take advantage of BT's existing premium hotspot network, BT Openzone, as well as using wireless access in the 'wireless cities' BT has set up (currently twelve).

Reports on the impact on performance for individual users are thin on the ground, but seemingly early concerns that the idea might slow down connections don't seem to have been borne out in day-to-day experience.

The possibilities for business use have not so far been spelled out in detail, but clearly if the idea catches on, this could be another milestone on the way to universal Wi-Fi access, and could also prove a cornerstone in the emergence of mobile VoIP as an alternative to other mobile voice and data services. Whether it will muddy the water, though, by slowing the roll-out of more powerful public access points is not clear.

FON was founded in Madrid in February 2006 by Argentinean chief executive Martin Varsavsky. FON investors include Google, Skype, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital - and now also BT.