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

Michael Lenczner mlenczner at gmail.com
Lun 6 Fév 00:14:05 EST 2006


ah - i understand.  we had miscommunication about this.

when I suggested a commercial version and a residential version I was
*not* suggesting a for pay version and a free version.  I meant a
version that had a captive portal suited for public spaces and a
version that had a captive portal suited for residential spaces.  
Both would be free.  I imagine the residential version being a copy of
neighbornode's forum-style portal.

I just like their method of getting more hotspots by allowing people
to intall their own firmware.  It would be in addition to our current
model.  But it could allow us to target some different populations and
accordingly have a different orginizational strategy.

because I don't really see us getting residential uses - or
non-montreal uses with our current model.  not that those are
currently goals.

mike

On 2/5/06, Dana Spiegel <dana at nycwireless.net> wrote:
> 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
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