Fon Vocabulary Lesson
Ok, this is getting out of hand. This guy says “Hello, I am a new to Fon, so I went to Fon, and ordered a Fon, and I have a problem with my Fon, I could not register my Fon and though I see other Fons on the Fon Map, can my Fon do this? Could one of you Fons help me? Fon, fon, fon, fon, FOOOOOOOON!!”
Please don’t drive us crazy! It is not an all-purpose syllable like “smurf.” Here is a quick course in Fon Vocabulary so that we all sound a lot more smarterer (put your mouse over the pictures):
This is Fon: This is La Fonera:
These are Foneros:
Aliens are registered, paying guests of what we call the Fon Wifi Network. Those who use the anonymous, free 15 minute trial wifi sessions do not have a name AFAIK. If they never pay for their wifi, then they may be called Leeches.
There is no such thing as “A FON” or “Fons”. Well, unless you mean these:
A Fawn: The “Fonz:”
Lastly, “Fon” is pronounced “phone”, and not “fawn.” Fon was conceived as a network of wifi hotspots for the purpose of connecting independant wifi-voip handsets. These could make cheap teleFON calls and undercut the exhorbitant rates of the monopolistic cellular telcos. Wifi for laptops was considered only as a side benefit, since there were allready plenty of wifi hotspots two years ago. Fon hotspots would be different because they would be tweaked for Voice Over Internet Protocol and have their own method of authenticating members of the Fon Network.
But something went wrong, because by Launching Day, Fon had a different business plan. Perhaps they wanted exclusivity with a major VOIP provider, but could not find a partner, perhaps they could not aquire necessary patents which were held by the monopolistic telcos. Fon will not discuss these matters, though interviews clearly describing their original business plan, are still recorded in blog posts.
Today, they tell the Press that “Fon” was named after the North African ethnic tribe of the same name. ?!!?!*%!!! which is 100% BS. Perhaps Fon was gagged by the courts, but there is plenty of evidence now, that they simply have a lot of trouble admitting that they’ve ever made mistakes.
Thank you for your respect and attention to this matter.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:28 am
so I can’t make a fon call on my fon to other peeps using fons (who are also fons)?
actually, they should have just rebranded it as smurf - it’s a cuter name
glad to understand (finally) why it works okay as a WiFi hotspot but pretty lousy as a WiFi phone node - finally gave up on my Skype+La Fonera setup this week and moved to an alternative solution… the so far has succeeded in first-time connecting twice as many calls as the previous config (but in fairness I blame Skype not El Fon.
Just wish they’d hurry up and hit ubiquity so I don’t have to wait for WiMax
February 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Well, you *can* make a “Fon” call at your LA FonERA or Linksys Fon hotspot, and talk to your peeps who may or may not be FonerOS. Perhaps there is a way to do this with smurfs, but if there were, I don’t think i’d want to do that. Smurfs are sticky and smell like wet goats!
Sorry to hear that you are having trouble making calls at your hotspot. Are you using a standalone wifi-voip handset? I don’t own one of these, but I do know that Skype calls sound excellent from my wireless laptop, while logged in through the public network, even with it set to throttle.
To the best of my knowlege, La Foneras should make adequate wifi phone hotspots. Most of the problems are with navigating Fon’s login page, which requires extensive support within the handset’s browser, or a compatible login manager.