BT lights up half a million wifi hotspots

Incumbent fixed line carrier BT said Thursday it is halfway towards its goal of building a million strong wifi hotspot network in the UK.

The company said that public wifi is now available at 500,000 homes, businesses and city centres in the UK and Ireland.

The sites include hotspots provided by the BT FON community, set up by Spanish open wifi maverick Fon, in which BT is an investor; BT Openzone; and Openzone hotspots via the BT Business Hub, offered by brands such as the Hilton, Thistle and Ramada Jarvis hotels, Cafe Nero and Starbucks.

BT said that 4.8 million customers have inclusive network minutes in their contracts allowing to surf the net, work or make VoIP calls over wifi.

A further 50,000 hotspots are available in the UK and overseas through international roaming partners, BT said.

Fon launched at the end of 2005 and has managed to land funding from Google, Skype and top venture capitalists, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital as well as BT.

Its users are divided into three and are known as either ‘Bill’ after Bill Gates, ‘Linus’ after Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, or ‘Alien’.

Bill members download software from Fon that turns their home wi-fi network into a hotspot offering anyone within its range, access to the internet for a fee.

Linus members allow their hotspots and bandwidth to be shared for free and can use any other members’ free of charge.

Aliens pay to connect to the Fon network and do not share their own networks. Fon and Bills will share the revenues earned from Aliens and other Bills.

The system has caused some disruption in the industry as a partly grass-roots social movement that encourages users to share internet access with their neighbours.

Do-it-yourself global wifi network Fon has recently passed the 1 million member milestone, the company said this week.

The open wifi champion, which was established in Spain, said it now has more than 400,000 registered Fon hotspots in over 150 countries.

The concept behind Fon is based on the idea that anybody with a broadband subscription can join the network by purchasing a Fon router. This router then enables members to share their internet connection securely with the Fon community and roam on all member hotspots for free in return.

Several high profile companies, such as BT in the UK, Neuf Cegetel in France, Comstar in Russia, and ZON in Portugal have also partnered with the grassroots movement, embedding Fon sharing functionality in their own wifi routers. ]]> http://www.telecoms.com/5448/fon-tops-1-million-subs-mark-2/feed/ 0 http://www.telecoms.com/8810/wifi-maverick-fon-expands-into-russia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wifi-maverick-fon-expands-into-russia http://www.telecoms.com/8810/wifi-maverick-fon-expands-into-russia/#comments Mon, 02 Jun 2008 19:00:45 +0000 James Middleton http://www.telecoms.com/?p=8810

Open wifi champion, Fon, said late last week that it has signed a deal to expand into Russia through a partnership with fixed line operator Comstar.

The Fon network consists of approximately 230,000 wifi hot spots around the world, and is expanded every time a subscriber attaches a La Fonera wireless router to their broadband connection.

Under the terms of the agreement, Comstar and Fon will jointly establish a wifi internet access network in Russia and the CIS, initially created by the Comstar subscriber base in Moscow.

Comstar said it plans to establish 30,000 wifi access points in Moscow in 2008-2009 before expanding to other regions.

Fon’s ‘social routing’ business plan is modelled on Aliens, Linus’s and Bills. Linus users let other Fon subscribers access the internet over their wifi connection in exchange for free access on any other Fon hotspot around the world. Bills charge for access at their hotspots and share the revenues with Fon, while Aliens are basically roaming users that pay to access Fon hotspots.

Russian venture fun Coral/Sistema is one of the investors in the Fon network, alongside Google, British Telecom, Skype, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Excite Japan, among others.

Spanish open wifi network Fon received a major seal of approval from the operator community on Thursday as UK incumbent BT joined forces with the maverick firm.

By partnering with Fon, BT brings a further 3 million broadband subscribers to join Fon’s existing user base of 500,000.

Anyone joining BT Fon will be able to use the existing 190,000 Fon hotspots across the world and all the new BT Fon hotspots free of charge. BT Fon users will also be able to hop onto BT’s 2,000 own Openzone hotspots across the UK. The 5,000 more that are shared with roaming partners are out of bounds apparently.

Fon’s ‘social routing’ business plan features Aliens, Linus’ and Bills. Linus users let other Fon subscribers access the internet over their wifi connection in exchange for free access on any other Fon hotspot around the world. Bills charge for access at their hotspots and share the revenues with Fon, while Aliens are basically roaming users that pay to access Fon hotspots.

The idea is to set up a massive wifi community, and BT’s inclusion goes some way to helping Fon realise that vision.

Initially, operators, including BT, were hostile to the Fon concept because it meant their broadband subscribers were sub letting bandwidth to other users. But some were more forward thinking. US cable broadband provider Time Warner signed a deal to allow subscribers to access the Fon network, and hotspot operator Boingo Wireless agreed a roaming deal with the provider.

Now BT has come around to the idea, in fact the incumbent has also been revealed as an investor in the operation, something which was long suspected. Other investors include Google and Skype.

Gavin Patterson, BT Group managing director, said, “We are giving our millions of Total Broadband customers a choice and an opportunity. If they are prepared to securely share a little of their broadband, they can share the broadband at hundreds of thousands of FON and BT Openzone hotspots today, without paying a penny.”

FON, the Madrid-based hotspot operator will provide access to an additional 130,000 hot spot locations provided by businesses and individuals who add their own hotspots to the FON community in exchange for the right to roam on other FON community locations for free or at a reduced rate.

“FON is continuing to attract important partners as it executes its business plan and builds a unique collection of wifi locations around the globe,” said Joanna Rees, CEO of FON US. “Now, the benefits of the FON network are available to a new audience – business travellers – who get ubiquitous coverage along with Boingo’s ease of use benefits.”

The partnership specifically allows Time Warner Cable subscribers to become Fon community members and create Fon access points via their home or business broadband connection.

Spanish-based Fon said its has nearly 60,000 community members in the US and is the largest wifi network in the country.

Hotspot providers are Fon community members, called Foneros, who share their bandwidth via a Fon router in exchange for free wifi access when roaming through any other Fon access point around the world.

Time Warner Cable has 13.4 million basic cable subscribers and 6.6 million residential broadband subscribers.

The La Fonera router offers two wifi channels. One channel is for the exclusive use of its owner; the second channel is shared with other Foneros.

On his blog, Martin Varsavsky, FON’s founder and CEO, said the money adds to the total of around $35m raised since the company launched last year. Fon received Eur18m in financing from Google, Skype, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital during 2006.

No details will be given on whether UK incumbent BT is among this round’s investors. The British giant has been rumoured to be interested in investing in FON which claims to be the largest wifi community in the world. It claims it has in excess of 320,000 members with 120,000 wifi access points, 60,000 of which were added in the last 60 days. 

Fon said it will disclose the names of its newest investors at “a later date”.

BT’s interest in FON has never been confirmed by the telecoms giant which has, in the past, said it would not allow FON or any services like it, onto the BT network. That followed calls from Martin Varsavsky, chief executive and founder of Fon, for consumers to generate their own telecoms infrastructure through the use of wifi hardware at ITU in December. 

In a statement seen by Telecoms.com, Fon said the new funds will go towards its expansion. It said: “Fon intends to focus on growing and offering more services and products to its Community members while continuing to increase its market penetration by reinforcing its presence through retail channels and partnership deals.”

Varsavsky said: “We are very proud of what we have built this last year with our fantastic shareholders and just as proud to welcome the support and insight from notable industry heavy weights. Having some of the most respected players in the world validates and strengthens FON’s vision.”

In the past, BT has said it would not allow FON users to link with BT wifi customers because it broke the company’s terms and conditions on sharing connections. If a deal is struck it will be the first time an incumbent has endorsed what many have regarded as an unrealistic business model.

News agency Reuters cites “two sources close to the talks”.

Fon launched at the end of 2005 and has managed to land Euro18m ($21.7m) in funding from Google, Skype and top venture capitalists, Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital.

Its users are divided into three and are known as either ‘Bill’ after Bill Gates, ‘Linus’ after Linux creator, Linus Torvalds, or ‘Alien’.

Bill members download software from Fon that turns their home wi-fi network into a hotspot offering anyone within its range, access to the internet for a fee.

Linus members allow their hotspots and bandwidth to be shared for free and can use any other members’ free of charge.

Aliens pay to connect to the Fon network and do not share their own networks. Fon and Bills will share the revenues earned from Aliens and other Bills.

The system is partly a grass-roots social movement that encourages users to share internet access with their neighbours and is viewed by many in the industry as potentially illegal. Despite concerns however, there are around 10,000 Foneros – FON users – in the UK.

BT would not comment specifically on the rumour but a spokesman said: “BT has been looking at ways to extend our wifi footprint in the UK inside and outside the home beyond our 2000 premium BT Openzone hotspots. A first phase of at leat 112 wireless cities and approaching one million wireless home hubs. We have also been examining possible partnerships to promote wifi however, we can’t give any more firm details of specific deals at the moment.”

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