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It is actually quite amazing. It’s now possible to get a WLAN router and access to a huge worldwide wireless network for free. What you have to do in return is share your internet connection with people who want to use this network in your area.

The vision
Here’s another one of those getting by sharing schemes. Kind of like a peer-to-peer or torrent file sharing network, FON is doing the same with your and others already existing internet connections to make a huge worldwide wireless network (WLAN = Wireless Local Area Network). The idea is that you use their router to share your internet connection wirelessly. In return, you get a slice of other peoples networks when you’re downtown, in a neighboring city or even in another country. So potentially, assuming enough people join this network, you will be able to connect your laptop for example to the internet anywhere in the world. Which is quite amazing I mind you!

This router normally costs about 30€ but they currently have a campaign going on (at least in Scandinavia) which means that you will get this router for free with no shipping cost. This is a very smart move to give this network a kick start. Finland’s former presidents son, Marko Ahtisaari say’s in an interview with Hufvudstadsbladet that Fon currently has 165 000 members and 40 000 active hot spots, and they believe that there will be over 70 000 by the end of this year! Most of these members have joined since the project started only last week. So it’s growing… and fast. Fon’s goal is half a million users wordwide within 2007 and one million in 2008.

In practice
Let’s check those numbers for just a second. The earth has rougly 149 million square kilometers of land. But taking into account that about 90% of earth’s population live on 10% of the land, there’s about 14.9 million square kilometers to cover. With the current number of hotspots, we’re falling a bit short. A modern router delivers under optimum condition an outdoor range of about 300 meters. That’s about 0.002 square kilometers of coverage. This means that the current 40 000 wlan routers covers a not so whopping 80 square kilometers - maximum. That’s 0.00005 percent of the inhabited earth. One also has to remember that indoors, the range of a typical wlan router is about 100 meters at best. So coverage is looking awfully poor.

On the other hand, the numbers of hot spots are continuously growing. Plus most people live in urban areas so I think that cuts that daunting 14.9 million square kilometers number by quite a lot. Today, about one fourth (25%) of the members are active, meaning they have their hot spots up and running. If the same ratio applies also in the future, which I believe would be a worst case scenario, there should be about 250 000 hotspots which means a much larger coverage area. But the number of active members will hopefully be much higher, and the more hotspots there are the better the coverage. But it will, of course be virtually impossible to cover the whole globe with internet access using this kind of technology.
So perhaps the term global is a little over exaggerated, but the concept is very cool nevertheless. Although the numbers may seem a little weak, the reality is that Fon’s wlan will probably be available in at least all major cities in the world and that’s a very good start. Most larger cities in Europe and the US is already filled with hotspots. Here in relatively tiny Helsinki there are already tens of active hotspots. Even in my microscopic hometown there is one! You can check coverage at maps.fon.com. Even if there’s not a hotspot at the exact place your staying on your vacation or business trip, odds are that there will be one very close nearby.

Participating
The level or membership can vary. There are three membership types. Either you can be a Linus, which means you give and get. I.e. you share your internet with other and you also have accessibility to others hotspots, all for free. You can also be a Bill, which means that you sell your hotspot for 1.5 € a day to so called Aliens who are the third kind of members. Aliens don’t have an own hot spot to share so they pay 3 € a day to use other’s. So Fon shares the incomes 50-50 with it’s members which I think is quite noble. On a funny side note, Linus and Bill obviously refers to Linus Torvalds who invented the free-for-everyone operating system Linux, and Bill Gates who created Microsoft and Windows which we all know costs ca$h.

Conclusion
So yes, I am excited about this. It seems to be another trend following the web 2.0 era and mantra - free stuff! This seemingly fantastic concept builds on existing technology and the idea that people should share with one another and build a better world together.

Well, of course someone has to pay for all this so I hope Fon can make a really good busniess out of this. Only history can tell if this is a smart strategy or not. But my gut feeling is that this is a good and perhaps even revolutionary thing. And I’ve learned that I should trust my gut. This project also rivals the arrival of 3G technology for wireless internetting and perhaps that’s a good thing, but it may also be bad. As I said, it’s just too early to tell.

But at the end of the day - getting a free WLAN router (although I already have one) and the chance of using wireless internet when I’m on vacation somewhere or just roaming around downtown, is just too good of an opportunity to miss. And let’s not forget that there are many people who probably live without the bliss of wireless networking. If you do, you’re really missing out on something down there i wire hell. This is the opportunity for all these people to get to try wireless bliss for free. Because even if this project crash and burn, which I doubt it will, you will still have that cool looking little wireless box which you still can use It’s a win-win situation. So I ask everyone who reads this to join this project. Because it can only succeed with enough active members!

I just became a member and placed my order Will you too? Check out www.fon.com to become a part of the future