The 3G issue seems to be another case of Martin trying to find a problem for Fon to solve but he seems to be ignoring the fact that many telcos are not promoting Micro/Pico cells such as this one from Vodafone UK (http://online.vodafone.co.uk/dispatch/Portal/appmanager/vodafone/wrp?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=templateCClamp&pageID=PPP_0161). At £50 this unit costs about the same as a Fon router and I bet that the price will drop dramatically if you are a high user (Vodafone have a habit of giving things away if you threaten to leave them). The cell solution seems much more sensible as:

a) WiFi wasn’t designed to be energy saving meaning that it uses more power than 3G.
b) 3G transparent roaming allows you to move out of the range of the cell without having to re-authenticate or switch Wifi signals (as you have to with Fon unless everyone sets their SSID to the same).
c) No authentication jail which means that apps such as mail work without having to fire up a browser as you have to do with Fon.

So what is happening to Fon? Why are they grabbing at every opportunity to flog units rather than working on low cost units which are:

a) Low power
b) Support power over ethernet, bridging, waterproof cases, better antennas, solar charging, etc so you can place them in locations where you can maximise signal and hence income.
c) Change of pricing model so that Foneros have a choice of data volume or time based passes (as some are on limited data volume broadband contracts).

So the SIMPLE has at best a partial 801.1N implementation.

FON2100/2200 were the original Foneras with 1 port
FON2201 was called “Fonera +” with 1 LAN/1 WAN port … like the “SIMPL”
FON2202 was called “Fonera 2.0g” with additional USB port; technically it arrived at the same time as the + but it got launched a year later
FON3300 was the Fontenna
FON2303 was the Fonera 2.0n
FON2305 was the Fonera SIMPL

I think the best case scenario would be to flash it with something like Tomato, to make it really useful.

In the 2 years I ran it only a couple of people ever connected.

Oh well.

Just make your WiFi router Open to All and secure your PC’s

“I’m waiting for a better price for Fonera 2.0n, to be announced at http://german.martinvarsavsky.net/ or http://blog.fon.com/de/
Thanks, Micha”

Just think, if there are 3 APs on channel 1, and 3 APs on channel 6, and you are on either channel 1 or 6, then you are competing with only 3 other APs. If you are on channel 2, 3, 4 or 5, then you are competing with 6 other APs at all times.

By acting cooperatively, and choosing only among channels 1, 6 or 11, we generate and receive the least interference, leaving the largest possible amount of bandwidth for everyone sharing the 2.4GHz band.

I don’t know why (or if) you are getting faster throughput on proscribed channels, but in the process you are straddling two legitimate channels, and causing them grief with the nose you generate. You wouldn’t like it if others did it to you. This is why everyone should play by the rules and use only channels 1, 6 or 11, and pick the one which has the least competition (measured in signal strength, not in quantity) in your immediate area.

It really is a shame that the IEEE accepted the current 11+3 pseudo-channel arrangement. It’s really more accurate to say it is a 3/4-channel system with the ability to tune up or down by quarter channels. The likely assumption was that wifi networks would never become as common as they are now, and that qualified technicians would use the offsets to avoid nearby sources of interference.

Nowdays, we simply don’t have the room to screw around. We need to stay in our lanes, and not try to squeeze between others like a motorcycle, as Dan does.

That said, 802.11n does exactly that. However, like other UWB-inspired technologies, it selectively abandons frequencies which have too much competition. The “Good Citizen” is built into the protocol.

I have over 50 wifi networks in my area.

1, 6, and 11 are all the slowest channels. I get between 1-3 mbps on these channels. Everyone is on these channels.

Channels 3, 4, 8, and 9 give me the best speed. I get my full 30 meg internet connection on these channels.

These channels might overlap but they aren’t 100% overlapped. If I am on the same channel as other people I am 100% overlapped with the other wifi network.

I realise this post is quite old, but since the internet ain’t that good at serving an answer for this particular problem, I want to ask you.

In step 8, your router froze after the exec command, like it couldn’t execute the firmware. I have this problem too, but my wlan light won’t go on and I don’t see any new wireless network. Did you do something special after this to get it working?

Dieter

Stage 6: FON drops the FON community concept and starts selling routers that no longe support FON sharing.

The Linksys WRT54GL doesn’t facilitate POE; It does not come from the factory prepared to accept power through an Ethernet port. My article is about modifying one so that it can. Perhaps Linksys meant that it would work with passive POE; which anything will.

Ordinarilly, a passive POE system involves an “injector” close to the power transformer and an “extractor” close to the router. These devices place the voltage onto unused wires in the Ethernet cable, keeping it isolated from the wires used for data. You can buy them pre-made, build your own, or do it the lazy way like I did. I didn’t need an “extractor” because I soldered a couple of wires on the router’s circuit board.

You would be better off using a passive injector/extractor pair, and the original transformer supplied by Linksys. I’ve had no problems powering my Linksys WRT54GL over 100′ of Ethernet cable this way.

Now the problem:
The rj45 connection path, here is how I have the connection. Oh I’ve conttacted the router vender and they mentioned that the router is POE compliant. Ok, I have the cable modem connected to the in port of the POE, than the out port of the POE to the in port of the router. Please correct me if I’m wrong, so after that I’m guessing the POE should detect the devices and it required voltage, right. Well I’ve installed these systems in the past, so it’s puzzling to me that it’s not working here. Well reply to my email and shed some light for the issue. maybe missing something there. Thnak you Carl

info:

http://www.squidoo.com/Fonera_NeoRouter

What’s up with Canada?!

I’m all ready to order a FON 2.0 router but I can’t buy it here yet.. Any particular reason for that?

Ho hum.

Ah, there is Fonero #1.234.567

Coming up to two million…;-)