FON

I just signed up as # 68,163 to Martin Varsavsky’s FON community. I waited for a long time as the router seemed with EUR 25.00 plus transportation /VAT not that cheap. With the new pricing of EUR 5.00 plus transportation / VAT - thanks to FON’s incredible EUR 18m funding - also I am convinced. Not that I think that the business model will work out to be extremely succesful because for this the FON hotspots so far, such as the 572 in Switzerland, are by far too decentralized - only a few being in city centers -, not easily to detect without a Wifi connection and worldwide too many own city Wifi projects are on their way - without FON. I am still waiting for the big deals with ISPs here in Europe, such as T-Mobile or Swisscom - after FON already announced some in France, Spain and Sweden.

However, I am excited how FON will develop and if they will reach their goal of 1m active hotspots end of 2007. Hopefully, these get more traffic than ours at the office and enough Bills will come up to make the business model work.

Technorati tags: FON Martin Varsavsky Wifi