[isf-wifidog] fon is having pretty remarkable uptake with their method of deployement

[Dana Spiegel]

What's the point?

Fon is a parasitic money generating business. It presents 2 problems:

1) Density. Only people who live right next to each other have the  
possibility of sharing internet through Fon. Most people live too far  
away. Even if they didn't. The likelihood of someone else putting up  
a fon hotspot that I could use is close to zero.

2) Even if (1) weren't the case, the vast majority of people aren't  
going to bother putting this up. Now, they could pay fon for access  
to hotspots, but that discourages the creation of new hotspots. In  
economic terms, this is an unstable equilibrium. As more people want  
to get access, they pay for it or ignore the system completely. This  
doesn't cause the growth of the fon installed base so there's no  
positive reason why I as an entrant should want to create a "Linus"  
type node. Instead, it causes me to put up a "Bill" type node, but as  
more appear, I make less and less. So I have little reason to keep my  
fon hotspot online, which drives down the installed base of "Bills",  
and puts even more negative pressure on me establishing a "Linus" node.

Frankly, Fon needs a critical mass in order to be even close to  
successful. Until then, they're just going to try to make as much  
money as they can.

For Wifidog, what's the big drive to create a "consumer" and a  
"business" version? If you are a consumer, you learn about this and  
do it yourself. If you are a business, and you want to hire someone  
to do it for you, you hire a consultant to install it. Billing is  
such a headache and expensive to operate, that you'd have to have  
significant usage if you were to profitably invest in this.

Dana Spiegel
Executive Director
NYCwireless
dana at NYCwireless.net
www.NYCwireless.net
+1 917 402 0422

Read the Wireless Community blog: http://www.wirelesscommunity.info


On Feb 5, 2006, at 3:24 PM, Michael Lenczner wrote:

> I really think we should talk seriously about having two firmwares
> which people can download and install by themselves.  two different
> kinds - one for a residential network and one for public hotspots.
>
> I know that there are lots of reasons *not* to do this, but we need to
> look at the reasons why we should as well.
>
> http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/fon/a-dream-come-true.html
> _______________________________________________
> WiFiDog mailing list
> WiFiDog at listes.ilesansfil.org
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