El Fon Blog

Today Fon and JoikuSoft announce their collaboration in a software addon for Symbian phones, called “JoikuSpot”. You can buy it in their JoikuShop at an introductory price of €15. It uses 3G or GPRS as your Internet backhaul (WAN), and built-in wifi for the hotspot (possibly in peer-to-peer mode instead of AP mode), so you too can share your bandwidth wherever you go!

My first thought, of course, is how this is excellent news for homeless Bills who have been encumbered by the extra weight of a La Fonera router, cables, and battery packs. Now, when they sell wifi at the train station, they only need to carry a single device with them! Hopefully, Fon can partner with a major cellco and negotiate a discount on their unlimited data plans for this charitable purpose.

JoikuSpot supports the following cellphone models (with an appropriate carrier, “unlimited” high speed data plan providing 3G/GPRS, and carrier provisioning to enable wifi on the phone):

JoikuSpot Premium also includes a VPN client to secure your connection to a home or corporate VPN server. JoikuSpot Premium does not force visitors to a default landing page, and is also 100% customizable for operator whitelabeling and licencing.

More information here:
Joikusoft and FON work together
Joikusoft and FON Unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot Software
Joikusoft and FON unveil Wi-Fi HotSpot software
Joiku, FON to offer premium mobile hotspot software
FON and JoikuSoft Introduce FonSpot Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot Software

Fon’s gay little router is positioning itself for greater penetration in America’s homosexual community.

Put the kids to bed, and visit Share The Castro for more details and a selection of provocative promotional videos.

Matador Joselito’s YouTube Page

The Register writes today about the ongoing protest against Fon’s 15-minute free Internet promotion. As usual, they don’t really know what Fon is; they think Fon is a VOIP company. KenRadio thinks Fon is a meshing router. Boingo thinks they’ve added 130,000 new hotspots through their partnership with Fon. Whatever.

Fon does not verify the emails given for free access, and this is the only “identification” required for free access. Additionally, the promotion was sprung on the Fonero Community without warning, fully activated and without debate. Fon President Martin Varsavsky wrote in his blog that trivial details like how much Bills would be compensated, and how Foneros could opt-out would be provided later, but there still is no mechanism provided to do this. Perhaps we need to email support@fon.com and wait the usual 2 weeks, etc.

In response, Fon makes the orange “Alien” icons vanish from Fon Maps. These had been used by Foneros to spell out messages on Fon’s maps, just north of their headquarters. These icons were automatically placed where Aliens lived, and were not opt-out (though you could manually misplace them to protect your privacy). A year of complaining to Fon about privacy was fruitless; a moment of embarassment while the Press watched seems to have suceeded.

ADDITION: BlogWiMAX has picked up on the story.

ADDITION: NewsWireless.Net has picked up on the story.

ADDITION: Wireless-Weblog has picked up on the story.

Just an ordinary lake! Move along!

Look! Watch the funny man!

Nothing to see here. Keep moving.

Haha, it’s the silly man again! Which is all you find in *official* Fon blogs this week!

Still not getting the message!

Wow, all of those light-green dots are *offline* hotspots! How can this be, when they are right there at Fon Headquarters? And it looks like a lot of homeless Aliens (orange dots) are camped out among the trees along the highway. Or is this Martin’s army of homeless Bills who provide wifi for VOIP calls throughout the city?

Please enjoy these “underground” Fon advertisements:

Matador Joselito seeks WiFi

Matador Joselito seeks Carmen

Fon will be providing access points to popular Spanish gay magazine, Zero, at Infinita 07, the next Gay Pride Parade in Chueca, the gay district of Madrid. Zero staff will be setting the hotspots up for free public access through the event date.

Fon says it would be fabulous to do this again Babe, but does not know when they will be back in town.